

Class 


Book 

GipghtN" 




COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




% 



% 

f- 


t 

’ • " 

» 1 • - . ' ft i 

<• • : 

'1 

h ' . ■ 

— 

^ 1 « 

» 

1 

* 

! '• 

f» 

k 

1 


' i * 

« 

( ' ' ' 



J 













\ 






ECLECTIC SCHOOL READINGS 


STORIES OF 

HUMBLE FRIENDS 


BY 

KATHARINE PYLE 


WITH PICTURES BY THE AUTHOR 



NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO 
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGR€$S, 
Two CoPi6fi ReoaviD 

DEC. ^4 190S 

CoPVwaKr ewinr 
DLASe ^XXd Na 

14^ U U- I 

OQFY a 


Copyright, 1902, by 
Katharine Pyle 


Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 
Stories of Humble Friends 

W. P. I 


<€«• «C«| 

« C • • 

• C t « « < 

C « « « 

< c « i « » 





“ He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things^ both great and small 
For the dear God who loveth us. 
He made and loveth all." 


3 







s*# 


'= 1 . 


♦ 







$ 


I 


r.; 





f.' 




« 


t 


V 



T 


I 


t 


I 


I 

c 



« 


/ 


t 




v‘ 

■ V— ■* «» 


.w. : 



‘*»rS • 



t . « 


“V 


•r 

« 


# 


•• 




CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER PAGE 


I. 

The Story of a Caterpillar 





7 

II. 

Little Brown Hen . 





13 

III. 

Bianca .... 





23 

IV. 

Jerry .... 





29 

V. 

Barry .... 





36 

VI. 

Fax ' . . . . 





44 

VII. 

The Two Little Crabs 





53 

VIII. 

James Crow 





62 

IX. 

Firefly . . . . . 





70 

X. 

The Story of a Slave 





77 

XI. 

The Tame Bat . . . 





98 

XII. 

The Captive Robin. 





106 

XIII. 

Flora and her Cat . 





1 18 

XIV. 

The Two Worlds 





125 

XV. 

The Partridges 





134 

XVI. 

Limpety .... 





138 

XVII. 

The Opossum Family 





157 

XVIII. 

Polly .... 





163 

XIX. 

The Pet Lamb 





171 

XX. 

What Became of the Kittens 





178 

XXL 

Gray wings 





183 

XXII. 

The Flying Squirrel 





188 


W i 



STORIES OF HUMBLE FRIENDS 


THE STORY OF A CATERPILLAR 

A CATERPILLAR had crawlcd up on a twig. It 
looked the twig all over, then fastened itself tightly 
to it by its hind legs and began twisting itself and 
moving its head up and down with a weaving motion. 
Every time the caterpillar’s head moved it left be- 
hind it something that looked like a glistening 
thread of silk. 

An ant that was crawling along the branch stopped 
and stared with wonder. “ What in the world are 
you doing ? ” it asked. 

The caterpillar paused to rest for a moment. It 
was hard work bending and doubling itself in that 
way. “I’m making a house,” it said. 

“ Making a house ! ” cried the ant. 

A bee that had lighted close by began to buzz 
with laughter. “ Will you tell me, if you please, 
what sort of a house that is ?” he cried. 


7 


8 


“ The only sort of house I know how to make,” 
the caterpillar answered humbly. 

“ I never heard of anything so absurd. Why 
don’t you hunt about and find a hollow tree, or a 
good hive, and live in that ? Then you would be 
safe.” 

“ Or you might find a hole under a stone,” adcied 
the ant. “ That’s a very good place.” 

The caterpillar shook its head. “ This is the 
only sort of house I know how to make,” it repeated. 
Then it set to work again. 

As for the bee and the ant they went their ways. 
“ A poor sort of a house indeed,” each one thought 
to itself. 

But the caterpillar went on working. 

Up and down, up and down its head moved, 
weaving and weaving. Now the silk was like a thin, 
silvery veil about it. Through the veil you could 
still faintly see the caterpillar moving. 

At last the veil grew so thick that you could not 
see the caterpillar at all. You could only guess 
that it might still be at work inside. 

After a while the bee came by that way again. 

It stopped and looked the little house all over. 
Then it flew down to the ant-hill. “ Miss Ant, Miss 


Ant, come out here,” it buzzed. “ I’ve such a joke 
to tell you.” 

The little ant stuck its head up from the hill. 

“ Such a joke ! That caterpillar we were watch- 
ing has finished its house, and has forgotten to 
leave any door,” and the bee buzzed very hard. 

“ That is too bad, ” said the ant ; “ I’m afraid it 
will starve to death.” 

But the caterpillar did not die. It was not even 
hungry. It was fast asleep in its little cocoon 
house. While it slept the sun shone or the rain 
beat, but the little house let in 
neither sun nor rain. It was snug 
and dark. 

If anyone had opened the cocoon 
now he would have found a won- 
derful thing. Inside the hard, gray 
outside shell was a lining as soft / K 
as silk, and still inside of this was PM., 
something — ^what was it? Not a 
caterpillar ; not a moth either, 
though if one looked carefully one 
could see what looked like tiny cocoon cm open 
wings folded closely down each side of folded legs, 
and the shape of feathery antennae such as moths 



lO 


have, but these too folded closely down. All were 
sealed together in what looked like a brown, soft 
skin. This thing was what we call a pupa. 

Days and nights passed and at last what had once 
been the caterpillar began to stir and wake. 

“ How strange I feel ! How strange I feel,” 
said the thing to itself. “ I must have light and air.” 

One end of the cocoon was very soft and loose. 
It was through this end that what had once been the 
caterpillar pushed its way out into the air. 

Oh, how weak and ill it felt ! Fastened to it on 
each side were two crumpled wet things which it 
began to move feebly up and down. As it moved 
them it felt its strength returning and the crumpled 
things began to spread and dry. Broader and 
broader they spread until they were strong vel- 
vety wings, two on each side. They were of the 
most beautiful soft brown color with a pinkish 
border along the edges. In the middle of each of 
the lower wings was a glistening spot like the 
“ eye ” spot on a peacock’s feather 

This thing was no caterpillar ; it was a beautiful 
winged moth. 

Presently it walked from the twig down upon the 
gray cocoon within which it had lain so long. Then 


II 


it spread its wings and floated softly off through the 
air and down to the earth. It did not fly far, for it 
had not its full strength as yet. 

When it alighted, 
where should it be but 
on the ant-hill. The little 
ant was very busy there, 
tugging at twigs and 
leaves, and hunting for 
food. It stopped its work 
to stare with awe at the 
wonderful stranger. 

“You beautiful thing/’ 
it said, “where did you 
come from ? ” 

“ Don’t you remember the caterpillar that made 
itself a house on the twig above ? ” 

“ Oh yes, poor thing, it must have died long 
ago,” said the ant. “ I went up there once or twice 
to see if I could help it, but there was no sound 
nor stir.” 

“I am that caterpillar,”- said the moth gently. 

The ant stared and wondered, “ I was once a 
pupa myself,” it cried. “ But I did not hatch out 
with such wings as those.” 



12 


Just then who should come buzzing by but the 
very bee that had laughed at the caterpillar’s 
house. It, too, stopped to gaze at the wonderful 
stranger. When it learned that this moth was 
that very caterpillar it buzzed for wonder. “ Well, 
well ! ” it said, “ so that was what you were about, 
was it ; growing wings in your queer house ! ” 

But the moth stirred itself. “ Now I must go,” 

it said. “ I must 
find a shelter under 
a rock or in some 
hollow tree until 
the sun goes down. 
But to-night — ah. 
Moth, Bee, and Ant to-night ! Then I 

shall come out to fly wheresoever I will.” 

So it waved its great wings and flew softly and 
noiselessly away out of sight. 

The ant and the bee sat looking after it. 
“ And to think,” cried the bee, “ that we should not 
have understood what that caterpillar was doing ! 
After all, every one knows his own business best.” 



13 


LITTLE BROWN HEN 

Little Brown Hen is a brown Bantam. 

There are beautiful shadings of blue and red 
and gold on her feathers, like the colors on 
burnished metal. She is as slender and prettily 
shaped as any bird, and her eyes are as bright as a 
bit of glass. 

She is a gentle little thing. She will let her 
mistress pick her up at any time, and then she will 
crouch on her mistress’ arm, talking softly with 
little throat sounds. 

Little Brown Hen likes to see everything there 
is to be seen. When the door is left open she 
comes walking daintily into the house, peering this 
way and that and making remarks to herself in a 
low tone. 

She peeps into closets and pecks at the string 
that ties boxes. Sometimes she flies up on the 
mantel and looks into The jars, or listens to the 
clock, with her head on one side. 

A place that she finds even more interesting than 
the mantel is the dressing table in her mistress’ 


room. 


4 


She goes hop, hopping up the stairs, and then 
flies upon this dressiiig table. There she walks up 
and down and pecks at the rings and brooches to 
try if they are good to eat. 

What interests her most of all, however, is the 
reflection of herself in the looking-glass. She 
thinks it is another little brown hen just her own 
size. She looks at it and talks to it, and every time 
she lifts her foot or turns her head that other little 
hen in the mirror does exactly the same. Often 
after she has talked to it for awhile she walks to the 
corner of the looking-glass and looks around back 
of it. Nothing there ! Little Brown Hen gives a 
surprised cluck and steps back, and there directly in 
front of her is the hen again. 

She never gets over the surprise of it. 

Little Brown Hen used to be very eager to raise 
a brood. She was always trying to set, but we 
did not want her to hatch any of her eggs. We 
did not want more Bantams. 

It was a longtime before Little Brown Hen 
would believe that we were so unkind. Again and 
again her eggs were taken from her, but again and 
again she laid more and began to set. 

No doubt, as she sat cuddling her small eggs 


15 


under her, she had dreams of cunning, downy little 
chicks that would grow up into lovely sons and 
daughters, brown like herself. What pride she 
would take in them ! What a pleasure it would be 
to teach them the ways of the house and to show 
them to that other little brown hen that lived back 
of the looking-glass ! 

But when, time after time, and time after time, 
her eggs were taken from her. Little Brown Hen 
began to droop. She lost her cheerfulness ; when 
we lifted her on our arms and talked to her there 
was a dispirited tone in her voice as she answered 
us. 

At last we could not be hard-hearted any longer. 
Little Brown Hen must be allowed to have her way. 
But we would not give her Bantam eggs; she 
should have Brahma eggs instead. 

When she found she was allowed to set, she was 
happy indeed. 

She was the most devoted little mother even be- 
fore the eggs hatched. She would sit there on 
the nest hour after hour, and actually ruffle up at 
us angrily if we dared to come too near. 

She would hardly leave the nest even to eat, and 
the moment she had finished, back she would hurry 


6 


to the nest, afraid that something might have hap- 
pened to those wonderful eggs. 

Little Brown Hen must have been rather aston- 
ished at the size of the chickens she hatched out. 

However, she led them forth bravely. She 
scratched and clucked for them just as all hens do, 
and was busy from morning till night. 

But how those chicks did grow ! Soon they 
were so large that when they tried to find shelter 
under the little hen’s wings at night they fairly 
lifted her from the ground. 

Sometimes she looked a little uncomfortable, but 
still she clucked bravely, and tried to make room 
for them all under her wings. 

Soon they quite outstripped her in size. They 
were taller than she was — great, ungainly, half- 
fledged things. 

It was funny to see Little Brown Hen scratch- 
ing away for chickens so much bigger than herself, 
and to see the long-legged things run when she 
called them to a worm she ’had found. 

At last they grew too big for Little Brown Hen 
to pretend any longer that they needed her care. 

She began to think about setting again, and we 
decided to give her some duck’s eggs. 


17 


Little Brown Hen looked curiously at the broad 
bills and webbed feet of the new brood that soon 
hatched out. They were fine looking children no 
doubt, but still it did seem strange that her chicks 
should always look so unlike anything she ex 
pected. 

This brood did not prove as easy to bring up as 
the other. Still Little Brown Hen managed pretty 
well until one day the little ducks found a pond. 



Little Brown Hen and her Ducklings 


Then to their little mother’s terror she saw one 
after another of them hasten to its edge and go sail- 
ing off across the water. 

In vain the little hen danced up and down calling 
to them to come back. The naughty ducklings 
floated happily about over the pond, heedless of 
their mother’s cries. 

Pyle’s Humble Friends.— 2. 


i8 

' Little Brown Hen even tried to wade in after 
them, but the water was too deep and she was 
obliged to come back to the bank. There she had 
to wait until the little ducks were ready to return. 

After that Little Brown Hen’s life was not a 
happy one. 

Regularly every day her disobedient brood started 
for the pond, waddling in a row, one after the other. 

In vain Little Brown Hen scolded and tried to 
head them off. They always escaped her, and one 
after another would slip into the water like downy 
yellow boats and paddle off across the pond. 

It was hard on the little mother, and her mistress 
felt sorry for her. She made up her mind that, as 
Little Brown Hen had done so well with those two 
broods, she should have her reward. She should be 
allowed to set on real Bantam eggs and raise a 
brood of her very own. 

Any one might have thought that Little Brown 
Hen would be delighted. 

But not so. She had other ideas than that. 
After such large, splendid eggs as she had been 
hatching she quite scorned to spend her time on 
any such poor little eggs as those. 

She refused to sit on them and left them to 


19 - 


spoil or to be taken care of by some hen of humbler 
spirit than her own. 

As no other eggs were provided for her, Little 
Brown Hen chose her third brood for herself. 

And what do you suppose it was ? Three kittens 
that had been deserted by their mother, and left 
as poor little orphans in a box in the woodshed. 

There Little Brown Hen found them. She sat 
on the edge of the box for some time, looking curi- 
ously at them as they squirmed and mewed below. 

Then her mind was made up. Down into the 
box she hopped and tried to comfort the little 
orphans with cozy mother sounds. 

The kittens were so young that their eyes were 
not yet open. It hardly seemed possible they could 
live after their mother left them. When the chil- 
dren found, however, that Little Brown Hen had 
adopted them as her brood, they made up their 
minds to save them for her. 

So they took turns through the day in feeding 
the kittens. They fed them from a bottle of 
warmed milk with a rag stuck in the end of it for 
them to suck. 

At first Little Brown Hen had half a mind not to 
let us touch the kittens. She seemed to be afraid 


20 


we were going to hurt them, and ruffled' up her 
feathers whenever we came near. 

Soon, however, she understood that what we were 
doing was for their good. 

Then, when she saw us coming with the bottle, 
she would fly upon the back of a broken chair close 
by, and watch the feeding of the kittens. The 
moment we turned away, she would fly down into 
the box again. 

With so much care from us all, the kittens throve 
and grew. One day one of them climbed out of 
the box. Poor little Brown Hen was almost dis- 
tracted. She could neither get that one back nor 
the others out. She flew backward and forward 
from one place to another, ruffling and entreating 
and threatening. 

At last one of the children came in, and'put the 
kitten back into the box. How delighted and re- 
lieved Little Brown Hen was ! She flew back into 
the box herself and trampled about in it clucking 
softly, and then settled down calling to the kittens 
to come under her wings. 

When the kittens were old enough to leave the 
box Little Brown Hen still tried to mother them. 
She would scratch and scratch until she turned up 


a worm or a grain or a beetle. Then she would 
call to the kittens to come and get it. When they 
would not touch it she would eye it wistfully, peck 
at it, and at last eat it herself. 

She learned to know, however, that the bringing 
out of a certain pie plate meant dinner for her furry 
brood. When the plate was set down she would 
hurry to it, clucking very urgently. We had no 



Little Brown Hen and her Kittens 


need to call the kittens ourselves. They knew what 
that cluck meant and would come running to see 
what she had for them. She would not allow the 
other cats nor the terrier Gyp to come near the 
plate. 

While her kittens ate she would walk around 
and around them with contented little clucks, now 
and then pecking at a stray morsel herself. 



22 


The neighbors used to come in on purpose to 
see Little Brown Hen and her kittens. 

One day one of these visitors brought his dog 
with him, — a big Newfoundland. 

The dog started to chase one of the kittens. If 
he had caught it his great jaws would have made 
short work of it. But brave Little Brown Hen flew 
at him so fiercely and beat him so with her wings 
that the dog fairly turned tail and ran away yelp- 
ing. 

When the kittens had grown to be almost cats 
two of them were given away. Little Brown Hen 
missed them sadly at first. She went about calling, 
and looking for them everywhere. 

Then she devoted herself entirely to the one that 
was left. The two were always seen together. 

When winter came the cat slept at night on the 
hearth before the kitchen stove. Little Brown Hen 
scorned the chicken house. She must sleep in the 
kitchen, too. Every night she perched on the back 
of a kitchen chair, tucked her head under her wing 
and slept there till morning. 

One night a big rat came out of a hole by the 
drain pipe. There was Little Brown Hen fast 
asleep,— a plump, fine morsel for a hungry rat. 


23 


She would have had little chance for her life, indeed, 
against those cruel teeth. 

But Little Brown Hen’s adopted child was there, 
no longer a kitten, but a great, brave cat. As the 
rat was creeping stealthily across the floor the cat 
pounced upon him. There was a struggle, short 
but fierce, and then the rat lay dead upon the floor, 
and Little Brown Hen was saved by her faithful 
kitten. 

The next morning when the cook came down- 
stairs she found the cat busy over the dead rat, and 
Little Brown Hen looking on curiously from her 
perch on the chair back. 

Many months have passed since that time. The 
cat is a mother herself now, and Little Brown Hen 
has raised other broods, — fine strapping chickens 
that might make any hen proud. But none have 
ever been quite so dear to Little Brown Hen’s 
heart as those three little kittens she found lying 
deserted in the box in the woodshed. 


BIANCA 

Bianca was a beautiful English setter belonging 
to Major Smith. 


24 


She was a fine hunting dog, and very intelligent. 
Every fall she went out hunting with her master. 
They always went on a certain train from a railroad 
station in the lower part of the city. The condyct- 
ors on the train knew Bianca. 

One day just before the hunting season opened 
the Major was called away from home on business. 
Bianca searched the house for him everywhere. 
Then she trotted down to his office. 

Last of all she went to the station. One train 
after another passed. Bianca waited for the train 
on which she and her master always traveled. 
Then she jumped on it. She went in the car and 
took a seat. 

“Hello, Bianca, where’s your master?” asked 
the conductor. 

It was not until the train had started that he 
found Major Smith was not aboard. Then it was 
too late to put Bianca off. 

She rode to the station where her master always 
went. There she jumped off, and trotted away 
toward the open country. 

In the evening she was waiting for the train ; she 
got on, took a seat, and came home again. 

This she did every day while her master was 


25 


away. She never made a mistake about the time 
of the trains, nor took the wrong ones. When her 
master came home she whined and cried with 
delight, and gave up her trips on the cars. 

Bianca’s master lived on the outskirts of the city. 
Opposite the house were fields and a little wood. 

Three times a week the butcher came driving 
along the road and stopped at the Major’s house to 
serve the family with meat. Bianca was always 
waiting at the gate to meet him. She waited there 
on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, the days 
he came ; never on any other day. 

Brock, Major Smith’s Newfoundland dog, used 
to follow her out and wait there too. Then the 
butcher would give them scraps of meat from the 
wagon. 

One day the butcher was slow and the dogs had 
to wait a long time. Bianca seemed to think it out. 
There was evidently going to be a short allowance 
of meat that morning, — barely enough for one. 
She must get Brock away somehow or other. 

Suddenly, just as the butcher’s wagon came in 
sight, she turned her head and pricked up her ears 
as though she heard something. Then she gave the 
yelp that meant game, and started toward the wood. 


26 



Brock was sure she had seen a rabbit or some- 
thing. Very much excited he ran after her, wish- 
ing to have his share of the fun. 

He was a much heavier dog than Bianca and 
could not go so fast. 

She led him far up into the woods and lost him 
there. Then she came tearing back and looked up 

eagerly into the 
butcher’s face,' 
wagging her tail 
as if to say, 
“ Please give me 
some scraps 
quickly;” 

When Brock, 
panting and with 
hanging tongue, 
came hurrying 

Bianca and the Butcher i i t» • i i 

back jDianca had 

eaten all the scraps ; and the butcher was just 
shutting up his wagon before driving away. 

One time Bianca had a litter of five little puppies. 

They were very cunning little things, with plump, 
warm bodies covered with downy hair. They had 
wiggly little tails and sprawling legs. 


27 


Bianca thought there had never been such won- 



derful or beautiful puppies before. She was so 
delighted with them that she could hardly take time 
to eat during the first few days. The moment any- 
one came into the woodshed where they were kept 

she began to wag 
her tail so hard you 
could hear it beating 
against the side of 
the box. 

Any one might 
have thought that 
Bianca would be 
satisfied with five 
babies to take care 
of. So she was at 
first. 

Then one day 
Bianca with the Rabbit when Major Smith 

went to the woodshed, there in the box with the 
puppies was a live baby rabbit. Bianca must 
have gone out to the fields and caught it there. 

Bianca looked up at her Master with the proud- 


est, most pleased look, as though to ask, “ Well, 


and what do you think of that ? 


28 


The next day there were two rabbits in the 
box. 

Bianca was very gentle with the rabbits, but they 
both died. 

She was very anxious when the dead rabbits 
were carried away. She followed them whining 
and wagging her tail. The Major told his coach- 
man to shut her up in the woodshed and then to 
bury the rabbits back of the stable. 

When Bianca was allowed to go out, she ran all 
about looking for the rabbits and whining to her- 
self. She seemed to forget about her puppies and 
would not pay any attention to them, even when 
they were crying with hunger. She had to be shut 
up in the woodshed again, as she would not go 
back of her own choice. 

When, an hour or so later, the Major peeped in 
there was Bianca curled up in the box with her 
babies quite contentedly. She wagged her tail as 
he looked in, but made no attempt to leave them or 
to look further for the rabbits. 

Bianca lived to be very old — so old that all her 
teeth dropped out, and she could only eat soft foods 
such as bread and milk. 

She reared a great many litters of puppies, but 


29 


she never again adopted any rabbits into her 
family. 


JERRY 

Jerry was a strong, rough, fierce dog. He was 
loved only by his master and his master’s family, 
and with them he was never cross. They could 
tease him and pull his ears and do what they chose 
to him. He would only wag his stump of a tail, 
and gaze up in their faces with brown eyes that 
looked very mildly at them. 

The first few years of Jerry’s life were spent on a 
farm. There he had his own special work to do, 
and that was herding the cows. 

If Jerry was lying quietly in a room with people 
talking around him, his master had only to say, “ Go 
get the cows now, Jerry,” and Jerry would jump up 
and trot out in a businesslike way. Down to the 
pasture he would go. There was one place there 
where he could take the bars down with his teeth. 
He would do this and drive the cows up to the 
milking stable. If one of them were missing, Jerry 
needed only to be told. Then he would trot away 
again. He would hunt through the pastures and 


30 


woods and not come back until he had found the 
cow and brought it with him. 

Only once did he make a mistake Then he 
brought home a cow belonging to a neighbor. The 
cow had broken through into his master’s pasture. 

“Why, Jerry,” said his master when he saw it^ 
“ this isn’t our cow.” 



Jerry and the lost Cow 


No dog could have looked more ashamed than 
Jerry did then. His ears drooped; he clapped his 
little stump of a tail tight down, and turned to 
slink away. “ Go get the other,” said his master. 
Jerry ran down to the pasture for the third time, 



31 


He was gone for quite a while but when he came 
back he was driving the right cow. Dog and cow 
were both covered with mud. The cow must have 
been lost in a swanlp. 

As long as Jerry lived in the country he was not 
a cross dog. It was only after his master came to 
the city to live that he grew so fierce. He did not 
have enough to do in the city. He had no cows to 
herd, and so he fought instead. 

He would fight any dog no matter how big or 
how little. Most dogs that will attack a dog smaller 
than themselves are bullies. They are afraid of 
big dogs. But Jerry fearedmo other beast, no mat- 
ter what might be its size. 

When Jerry’s master took him out for a walk he 
fastened a chain to his collar. He kept the dog 
close to him as long as they were in the city. 
When they reached the country he would loosen 
the chain and set him free. He generally waited 
though until there was no living thing in sight, for 
Jerry was so delighted at having the chain unfas- 
tened that he would rush at anything he saw. 

In such cases he had to be punished. But this 
did very little good. He was so glad when the 
punishment was over that he generally ran and did 


32 


the same thing again. After he had had a brisk 
run he would quiet down. Then he would even 
let a dog come up and sniff at him without attacking 
it. 

Jerry’s master owned another dog, a black-and-tan 
terrier named Flicker. 

Flicker was a great coward. 

When Jerry was punished, his master used a 
heavy whip ; and Jerry always took his punishment 
without a sound. 

When Flicker was whipped a light switch was 
used — a switch so light that striking the bare hand 
with it scarcely stung. But the moment it was 
raised over him, and before it touched him. Flicker 
would begin to whine and yelp. 

There was nothing the terrier enjoyed more than 
getting Jerry into a fight. When they were out 
walking and met a dog Flicker would go up to the 
stranger, moving his legs stiffly and snarling. 

The dog would growl in answer. Then Flicker 
would glance round at Jerry as if to say, “ Did you 
hear that ? He’s growling at you.” 

Jerry’s temper could hardly ever stand this. A 
fight would follow, and Flicker, in high glee, would 
prance about the heap of dogs, nipping at any leg 


33 


or tail that happened to be convenient. Often it 
was Jerry’s leg. 

Once when he did this Jerry whirled round from 
the other dog, and under the excitement of the 
moment caught Flicker and gave him a good shake. 
Then seeing who it was, he dropped the terrier 
immediately and returned to his real enemy. 

The little terrier came running over to his master 
limping, and howling for sympathy. His master 
was afraid from his cries that he was almost killed, 
but he was not really hurt at all. He was only 
frightened. 

Once Jerry was terribly bitten by two great blood- 
hounds that he had attacked. The family nursed 
him until his wounds had healed, and they hoped he 
had learned a lesson. But as soon as he was well 
he was just as eager to fight as ever. 

One morning the garden gate had been left open 
and Jerry got out into the street alone. He lingered 
about for awhile and then trotted down to his 
master’s office. 

It was so early that no one was about except the 
man who attended to the fires. He had left the 
office door ajar and had gone out for something. 
When he came back he saw a dog there in the 

Pyle’s Humble Friends.— 3. 


34 

office. The man shouted and made a motion as if 
to throw something at the dog. 

Instead of running away as the man expected the 
dog turned and rushed at him with a fierce snarl, 

and such a wicked 
look that the man 
was terrified. He 
had barely time 
to climb up on a 
high office desk 
before those 
white teeth click- 
ed behind him. 

When Jerry’s 
master came 
down to the 
office, he found 

Jerry and his Captive the building Still 

cold and the fires unmade. On top of the desk the 
man was crouching, ready to weep with rage and 
fear. Before the desk was Jerry, still keeping watch 
and snarling every time the man moved. 

Jerry ran to meet his master, his stump of a tail 
wagging joyfully. His look of pride seemed to say, 
“ Come and see what I’ve caught for you.” 



35 


Though Jerry was so bold, there were some 
things of which he was afraid. He was a perfect 
coward in a thunderstorm. At the first distant peal 
of thunder he always showed signs of fear. As the 
storm came nearer he would rush upstair^ and hide 
under a bed. There he would lie trembling until 
the storm was over, and the last low mutterings 
had died away in the distance. 

Then he would crawl out looking thoroughly 
ashamed of himself. The next storm would frighten 
him just as much. 

He was afraid of strange things that he could 
not understand. 

One day a newspaper and an old hat had been 
thrown out beside the pump. Jerry was trotting 
through the yard when he saw them. He did not 
know what they were. He stopped short with a 
low growl. The hair on his back rose. 

Just then the wind stirred the hat, and some 
one rattled the latch of the alley gate. He could 
not stand that. He turned tail and ran back to the 
kitchen as fast as he could go. 

Though the dog was gentle with his master and 
the family, he was so fierce with other people that 
it did not seem right to keep him in the city. A 


3 ^ 


good home was found for him — a home in the 
country where he would have herds to attend to 
and could be busy and happy. 

The children cried when he went away and Jerry 
tried to lick their faces through the muzzle that had 
been put on him. The muzzle would be taken off 
when he was in his new home ; and his master said 
he was sure Jerry would be happier there than he 
could ever have been in the city. 

His master was right, and he heard from the new 
owner that he had never had a dog on his farm that 
was as faithful and useful as Jerry proved to be. 

BARRY 

When Barry first came to the house he was a fat 
and downy little puppy with paws that seemed too 
big for him. 

He yelped at night when he was left alone and 
he tore things to pieces as all puppies do. Then 
when he had done all the mischief he could, he 
would drop down and go to sleep wherever he hap- 
pened to be. 

He ate great quantities of bread and milk, — half a 
loaf at a meal, — and grew very fast, but his paws 


37 


seemed to grow faster than any of the rest of him. 
He was always falling over them. 

One of the first things the boys tried to teach 
Barry to do was to follow them. They took him for 
a long walk, and Barry followed them very well until 
they turned to come home. Then he sat down in 
the middle of the road. He was tired. 

They called and coaxed, but Barry sat there 
with his tongue lolling out and his eyes half shut. 



The Puppy Barry asleep 

He paid no attention to their calling except to beat 
the dust with his tail. When they pretended to 
leave him he cried, but he would not walk. At last 
they had to carry him, big, fat, heavy puppy that 
he was, all the way home. 

After Barry had torn and spoiled a great many 
skirts and shoes and other things with his puppy 
teeth, he began to have more sense. He also began 
to feel his bigness and dignity. 


38 


He was a very handsome dog. He was tan- 
colored with a white line down his forehead and a 
white breast. The color deepened about his nose 
to a velvety blackness. 

He was so big that his back was on a level with 
the dining-room table. He could look across it and 
see what there was to eat, but he was too well-bred 
to ask for anything. 

When Barry wagged his tail in the house he 
generally knocked something over. Then there 
was a crash. Barry learned to know this. When 
we saw something going and shouted Barry !" 
he would drop his tail hastily and look behind him. 
His look seemed to say, “ Oh dear! What have 
I done now ? ” 

Once he knocked a little child over by wagging 
his tail when he stood close by it. When it cried 
Barry was very sorry. He wanted to lick the tears 
from its face. 

Barry loved all children, and all little helpless 
things. The children in the street used to run up 
to him and pat him and hang on to his collar or even 
his tail. Barry never hurt them or even so much 
as growled. 

At different times several small kittens were 


39 


brought to the house. Then Barry could not 
rest. Every time they moved he moved. If 
they mewed he was as excited as though such a 
thing had never been known before. He worried 
the kittens almost to death by putting his nose so 
close to them, when they lay down to sleep, that 
every breath he drew stirred their fur. 

In the end they always became very fond of him 
however. They would play with his ears or tail, and 
curl up between his paws to sleep. Then Barry 
would be perfectly happy. He would hardly stir 
for fear of disturbing them. 

But Barry’s favorite companion was a pet rac- 
coon. It was brought to the house when it was 
a little baby thing that had to be fed with a bottle. 

Barry was deeply interested. We could not keep 
him away . from the little beast. 

As the raccoon grew older it used to play with 
Barry. Sometimes it bit him so sharply in its play 
that Barry yelped. 

Coonie delighted in teasing Barry when he was 
trying to sleep. It would steal up and nip his ears, 
or his feet. It annoyed him more than the flies. 

When he was gnawing a bone the raccoon would 
lift his lips and try to pull it away from him. It 


40 



Barry and the Raccoon 

in the hall. Then he would come back and look 
into his mistress’ face, and whine. He seemed 
never to forget his little friend. 

Barry’s mistress always felt perfectly safe when he 
was with her. One evening she had to go out on an 


liked to tuck nuts and things under his broad col- 
lar. But Barry was never cross to it. 

After it died he hunted for it everywhere with an 
anxious look. For years afterward if any one called 
“ Connie, Coonie,” Barry would start up eagerly 
and look all around, — back of sofas and chairs, or out 


41 


errand. As there was no one to go with her but 
Barry, she took him along. He trotted a little in 
front of her, his tail waving cheerfully. 

In a dark and lonely place they met a lounger. 
Barry stopped with a low, deep growl. He waited 
until his mistress caught up with him. He walked 
along close at her side being careful to keep between 
her and the man until they had passed him. 

Then Barry dropped back. He turned his head 
and looked at the man with a low growl that seemed 
to say “ Remember, I am here,” and trotted on 
behind his mistress. He knew he was her protector 
and was proud of it. 

Barry was polite to everybody and expected in 
return to be treated with respect. He would not 
forgive an insult. Once the grocer’s boy came to 
the house with some groceries. Barry knew him 
well and was always friendly. 

This day the boy was impatient or out of humor. 
Barry was in his way and the boy gave him a little 
kick. It was not a hard kick but Barry’s dignity 
was terribly hurt. His eyes flashed. He sprang up 
with a deep growl. He would have jumped upon 
the boy if one of the family had not been there to 
stop him. 


42 


Barry never forgave that kick. Whenever the 
boy came to the house Barry gave a low growl 
and walked away. The boy became so much 
afraid of him that he persuaded some one else to 
bring the groceries to the house. 

Barry’s great-grandfather had belonged to the 
monks of the hospice or monastery of St. Bernard in 
the Alps in Switzerland, and it was said that he had 
saved the lives of twenty travelers who had been 
lost in the snow at one time or another. 

It must have been some instinct come down to 
Barry from this great-grandfather that made him 
act as he did when the boys wrapped themselves in 
shawls and lay still. They did this sometimes to 
see what he would do. 

After they had lain perfectly motionless for 
awhile Barry would grow very anxious. He would 
whine and poke them with his nose. If they did 
not stir he would paw them over. If that did no 
good he would begin nipping them through the 
shawl, at first gently, then harder and harder, until 
they were obliged to move. 

When at last they stirred Barry would be per- 
fectly delighted. He would jump about with heavy 
gambols until the windows shook. 


43 


Once or twice the boys took Barry with them 
when they were going swimming. But as soon as 
he saw them splashing in the water he grew very 
much excited. He was afraid they were drowning. 
He almost drowned one of the boys himself by go- 
ing in after him, catching him by the arm, and 
dragging him to the shore in spite of his struggles. 
After that the boys left Barry at home when they 
were going swimming. 

But Barry was to have his tale of a saved life. 
One time, out in the country, the baby of the 
family had run away from her nurse. She was 
playing at throwing sticks into the water. The 
water was a mill stream and very swift. 

Again and again Barry caught the child by the 
skirts and drew her away from the shore. At last 
the child grew angry. She was about to throw a 
stick in the stream when Barry caught her by the 
skirt again. 

The child turned and struck at him. That made 
her lose her balance. She fell backward into the 
water with a great splash. 

Instantly Barry plunged in after her. He caught 
her by the frock and swam against the stream that 
swept down toward the mill wheel. The bank was 


44 


too steep for him to climb out and the current 
swept him down Avith it in spite of his struggles. 

But a man who was passing along the road had 
seen the . accident. He ran and threw himself 
down beside the mill stream and reaching over 
caught the child. He pulled her out, and then 
Barry could climb out by himself. 

If the family had been fond of Barry before, you 
may be sure that they loved him after that. Barry 
lived to be very old, and few dogs have had a hap- 
pier life or been more petted than he. He deserved 
it, too, for he was brave and faithful and noble. 


FAX 

Fax was a homeless, starved, forsaken cur. No- 
body seemed to want him. He had been driven 
from one place after another, sometimes with 
threats, sometimes with blows. When the Wilsons 
first saw him he was trying to find something to eat 
among the scraps in their garbage bucket. 

“ Poor thing,” said Mrs. Wilson. Then she 
called to the cook who had appeared threateningly 
at the kitchen door : “ Don’t drive the poor thing 

away. He looks almost starved.” 


45 


After the cur had gotten all he could from the 
bucket, he went away. But he came back before 
many days, and then again and still again. He be- 
gan to seem to feel at home in the yard, sometimes 
curling up in a corner of it and going to sleep there. 

It was so quiet and pleasant. No one threatened 
him or drove him away. When any of the family 
came into the yard, he would look up at them 
appealingly and beat the ground with his tail. 

After a while he made friends with the kitchen cat. 
Often they would eat together from the plate of 
scraps that the cook set out for them. This pleased 
the cook so much that sometimes, when the nights 
were cold, she allowed the cur to come in and sleep 
before the fire. 

He had been very abject while all the world 
was against him, but now that he had something of 
a home he began to pluck up a little spirit. 
Once he even barked at a tramp who came to the 
door, though immediately afterward he dropped his 
tail and looked ashamed, seeming to feel he had 
gone too far. 

' One evening when the library door was open 
the cur’s head appeared peeping around the jamb 
at the assembled family. Then he crept farther in. 


46 


his tail down and wagging humbly, his look 
seeming to say, “ May I come in?” 

They did not encourage his hopes, however. 
He was driven down to the kitchen, and the hall 
door was closed. But the next day while the 
Wilsons were at dinner his white face appeared 
again at the dining-room door. 

The family had a Skye terrier, very old and fat. 
His one accomplishment was sitting up to beg. He 
went around the table from one person to another, 
begging and waving his feathery paws. Some of 
them rewarded him with bits of food from the table. 

The cur watched the terrier awhile from the half- 
open door. Then he gravely walked across the floor 
to Mrs. Wilson, sat down, and after one or two 
attempts lifted his front paws from the ground and 
begged just as he had seen the other dog do. 

It was so clever of him to do that of himself that 
everybody laughed and applauded. After that the 
cur was accepted as one of the family. He was 
allowed to come and go as he chose, and was given 
the name of Fax. 

The little Skye was very jealous. He growled 
and snarled and tried to pick a quarrel with the 
new dog. But Fax was very quiet and dignified. 


47 


He was not afraid, but he would not fight, and if 
the terrier grew too unpleasant he simply rose and 
walked away to an- 
other part of the 
room. 

The eldest son of 
the family, M r. 

Richard, as the ser- 
vants called him, 
thought he would see 
if he could not teach 
Fax some more tricks, 
since he had been so 
clever about learning p'ax Begging 

to beg. Every evening he gave Fax a lesson and 
it was wonderful how quickly the dog learned. Be- 
fore long he would roll over and play dead dog at 
the word of command, leap through a hoop, sit up 
and beg with something on his nose, then toss it 
up in the air and catch it in his mouth, close the 
door and fetch a glove, a shoe or a letter as he 
was told. 

In return for these lessons Fax adopted Mr. 
Richard as his especial master to be followed and 
obeyed. The obeying was all right, but as to the 



48 

following, his master did not always care for his 
company. 

One of the duties Fax took upon himself was to 
escort Mr. Richard down to the office every 
morning. Nothing was allowed to interfere with 
this. If his master tried to scold him, back he 
cringed ; if sticks were thrown at him he dodged 
them, but follow he would. 

At last the young 
man was obliged to 
give up and allow 
the cur to go with 
him. Then Fax 
was a proud and 
happy dog. Every 
morning he was 
ready and waiting, trotting off at Mr. Richard’s 
side with ears up and tail curled jauntily over his 
back. If any dog dared even to look at him he 
growled haughtily. He never tried 'to go into the 
office. After seeing his master safely there he 
would turn and trot home again by himself, quite 
contented. 

And now every day Fax grew more and more 
proud and dignified. When he first came to the 



49 

house he had been so humble-minded that he 
was very grateful to be noticed at all, and eager 
to learn tricks and show them whenever they 
were called for. But now he refused to do anything 
unless he felt in the humor for it. 

One day some visitors were at the Wilsons’ when 
Fax came strolling quietly into the parlor where they 
sat. Mrs. Wilson began telling them what a clever 
dog he was and how many tricks he knew. The 
visitors said they would like to see him perform 
some of them. 

“ I don’t know whether he’ll do them to-day or 
not,” said Mrs. Wilson. “ He’s not always very 
obedient.” Then she told Fax to close the door, 
but he only sat down in the middle of the room and 
looked around him cheerfully. He would not 
jump, he would not fetch a glove ; he would not do 
anything but play dead dog, and then, when he had 

once lain down he 
would not get up again. 
There he stayed 
stretched at lepgth un- 
til the visitors rose to 
Playing “ Dead Dog” Then he jumped 

up and politely escorted them to the door. 

Pyle’s Humble Friends.— 4. 



50 


Mrs. Wilson felt mortified by his behavior, but 
when she told her son of it he only laughed. 

Mr. Richard was soon to be married, and one 
day Mrs. Wilson said, “ I suppose when you have 
a home of your own you’ll take Fax with you.” 

“ I don’t know,” he answered ; “ I hadn’t thought 
of it.’\ 

Fax however decided that matter for himself. 
The family was all very well, but he felt his place 
was with his master. So when Mr. and Mrs. 
Richard moved into their new house Fax moved 
there too, only coming back now and then to 
call at his old home. 

Fax found his new mistress quite to his mind, 
even if she did laugh at him and call him “obsti- 
nate Fax.” There was only one thing about which 
they had a standing quarrel. Whenever the door 
of the guest chamber was left open Fax would go 
in and get on the bed. There he would snuggle 
down under the covers with only his head showing 
as it lay upon the pillow. 

His mistress kept a little switch, and whenever 
she found him there she switched him. The punish- 
ment did not hurt Fax much but it offended him 
deeply. After it had happened, he would not take 


51 


any notice of his mistress or have anything to do 
with her, sometimes for a whole day. 

Time slipped by, and after a while there was a little 
master in the new house, — a baby boy, and his name 
too was Richard. Fax was very much interested 
in the baby. He no longer followed his older master 
down to the office. I nstead he slept beside the baby’s 
crib or walked beside the baby-carriage as the nurse 
wheeled it through the streets. He seemed to feel 
it his special charge. As the baby grew to be first 



Fax to the Rescue 


a toddler and then a sturdy little boy. Fax was still 
his devoted companion. 

One day the little child was playing on the pave- 
ment before the house. Fax, now grown to be 
quite an old dog, lay upon the steps watching him. 

Suddenly around the corner came a large and 
dangerous looking dog. It was frothing at the 
mouth and now and then it turned its head aside 


52 


and snapped at the air. The little boy stopped his 
play and watched it coming. There was no one 
else in sight. Fax too had seen the dog. He rose, 
and the hair bristled on his back. Then he sprang 
down and placed himself before the child. 

On came the dog directly toward them. Fax 
seemed to feel there was something wrong with it. 
As it came so close that in a moment it would have 
to turn aside or be upon them, Fax gave a snarl and 
sprang at its throat. Then they tumbled over and 
over in the street. 

Mrs. Richard heard the noise of the fight, and 
running out she caught up her child and carried 
him into the house. 

Presently Fax came running into the house, too. 
He looked up into her face whining and half bark- 
ing. His neck was bitten but not very badly. The 
big dog had shaken itself free and trotted on down 
the street. 

A few blocks further on it was shot, for its master 
had come running after it with a gun. He said it 
was mad. 

The man wanted to shoot Fax, too, when he 
heard he had been bitten. But his mistress said 
no. She shuddered and turned white at the 


53 


thought of the danger from which the faithful dog 
had saved her little son. She said they would shut 
Fax up where he would be safe, but she could not 
bear the thought of his being killed unless it was 
perfectly certain that he was going mad. 

Fax’s master said the same. He longed to show 
his gratitude to Fax. How they petted and praised 
him. 

They were obliged to shut him up, however, 
where he could not get away. They gave him every 
care and attention but very soon he drooped and 
sickened. It was hydrophobia. When he grew 
worse it seemed only the best and kindest thing to 
put an end to his sufferings. 

In his master’s yard now stands a little headstone 
and on it are these words : — 

In Loving and Grateful Memory 
OF Faithful Fax 

THE TWO LITTLE CRABS 

All along the miles of hard, flat beach the waves 
rush up to break with a long roar. Then they slip 
back into the ocean only to come roaring back 
again. 


54 


Far away from the cottages and big hotels is a 
stretch of shore called Pebbly Beach. It is very 
lonely there, with no sound but the rush of the 
breakers and the cries of the sea gulls. Little sand- 
pipers with legs no thicker than straws run up and 
down hunting for things to eat. The white sand 
fleas that are washed up on the beach with the waves 
make haste to burrow down out of sight in the wet 
sand. They are afraid the sandpipers will catch 
them. 

Scattered about this beach are many sea shells. 
They are all around, but the greatest number are 
down in a shallow salt pool that lies in a hollow of 
the sand. 

These shells do not lie still. They move about 
as though they were alive. 

This is not magic. Anyone looking closely at 
the shells would see peering out from almost every 
one of them something that looks like two staring 
eyes. He would also see two little claws and per- 
haps four little spiny legs put out to walk. 

These belong to the hermit crabs who find these 
shells and then curl themselves in them as though 
they were little houses, and live there. 

There used to be one shell in this pool that was 


55 


perhaps the prettiest of all It was such a shell as 
one does not often see ; beautifully curled and 
curiously marked with greenish colorings. It had 
washed up after a storm from far away. 

The little crab who lived in this shell was very 
proud of it. He curled his soft tail comfortably 
inside and held it tight with a sucker. Then he 
walked about as he chose to go. With that shell 
to protect him, there was no fear of being gobbled 
up by some of the greedy beach birds. He would 
feel quite safe even if the breakers rose so high that 
he was washed out to sea. 

When the crab first found the shell, he was quite 
little — so small that it was almost too big for him to 
drag about. 

But day followed day, and as time passed the little 
crab grew and grew. 

The shell did not grow, however, and so after 
a while it began to be too small for him. It was a 
beautiful little house, but it was a tight fit. 

“Yes, there is no doubt about it ; I need a larger 
shell,” said the crab. 

“Yes you do. You certainly do need a larger 
shell,” said a smaller crab who had crawled up close 
to him. 


56 


The larger crab looked at the other. “ I should 
think you would be looking for another shell your- 
self,” he said ; “yours must be a tight fit for you. 
And more than that it is a very ugly shell. Why 
didn’t you hunt up a pretty one while you were 
about it ? ” 

The smaller crab twiddled his feelers. “ Oh I 
will wait awhile,” he said. “ Maybe I’ll find abetter 
house without bothering myself to hunt.” 

After that wherever the larger crab crawled the 
smaller one kept close beside him. The big crab 
was now really hunting for another shell, but none 
of them seemed just what he wanted. 

“ Why don’t you try them ? ” the little one kept 
asking him. “ Why don’t you try them ? ” 

“ But they’re none of them what I want,” said the 
larger crab. 

“How can you tell that? For all you know, 
any one of them might do if you were not too lazy 
to try.” 

So he kept on taunting the other with being too 
lazy to get out of his shell until the larger one be- 
gan to be quite ashamed. “ Well, I will try one,” 
he said at last, “but I know it won’t do.” 

He unfastened his sucker and crawled out of his 


house. No sooner was he well out of it, however,s 
than whisk ! the smaller crab had popped out of his 
own ugly little shell and into the handsome one 
that belonged to the other. 

“Wait! Wait a bit!” cried the larger crab. 
“ This new shell will not do for me at all. I can’t 
even get into it. I must have my own house back.” 

“ Must you indeed 1 ” cried the other, “ We’ll see 
about that. I mean to keep it myself since you 



Two Little Crabs 


were dunce enough to leave it,” and he looked at 
the other fiercely with his little pop-eyes, and 
shrank back into the shell so that only his sharp 
claws were out. 

Now the larger one was in a bad way indeed. 
He was too big to get into the shell that he had 
found or into the one that the smaller crab had left 


empty. 


58 


“Never mind!” cried the little thief, as it 
peered out from the stolen house. “You needn’t 
bother about finding a shell. Something will come 
along and eat you up in a minute. You’ll be a 
dainty morsel.” 

The houseless crab looked wildly about him. 
Where could he find a shelter ? Where hide him- 
self ? 

Close by he saw an old clay pipe that had been 
washed up by the ocean. The stem was broken 
and it was ugly and heavy, but still it might shelter 
him from danger. 

Suddenly a shadow passed across the pool. 
Quick as a flash the crab was in the pipe with 
his soft tail curled up behind him and only his claws 
showing. 

How the smaller crab in the stolen shell twiddled 
his feelers and jeered at him 1 “ Well, I’m going, ” 

he cried, “ I find this a very good shell, thank you. 
Very much better than what I had.” 

He put out his legs to walk. Then suddenly he 
curled them up again, drawing as far back into his 
house as he could. There was a heavy rumbling 
on the beach that came nearer and nearer. They 
could hear it down in the salt pool. 


59 


“ Weet ! Weet !” cried the sandpipers, and they 
lifted their legs and flew away. 

A broad-wheeled carriage was driving along over 
the hard, wet sand close to the edge of the waves. 

“ This is Pebbly Beach,” said the driver. 
“ Plenty of shells here. Professor.” 

“ Oh, papa, mayn’t I get out and gather some ? ” 
cried a little girl who was on the front seat. 

“Yes; Pll get out too,” said the Professor. “ I 
feel quite cramped with driving.” 

He climbed out and then lifted the child down 
on the sand. 

“ Oh, look at the shells! ” she cried. “ Heaps of 
them. Oh, where’s my bucket ? And just look at 
these in the- pool. Aren’t they beauties?” She 
took one out of the water, but a moment after she 
threw it from her with a cry. “ Ugh 1 There’s a 
horrid bug in it.” 

Her father laughed as he lifted the shell and 
looked at it. “ It’s nothing but a little hermit 
crab,” he said. “ You’ve frightened him more than 
he frightened you. That shell is his little house.” 

He picked up one shell after another from the 
pool and in each one was a frightened crab. 

“ Never mind, my dear. You have plenty of 


6o 


shells like these,” he said. “ They are none of 
them very pretty.” 

“ This one is,” said the little girl. She had 
picked the very one the thievish little crab had 
stolen. “ But it has something in it, too.” 

Her father took it from her. “ Why, this is 
rather a rare shell,” he said. “ I’ve never seen one 
like it on this beach before. We must add this to 
our collection.” 

“ But it has something in it, papa.” 

“We’ll manage to get that out somehow. Let 
us see if we can find any more like it.” 

He began to look more carefully. Presently he 
came upon the old pipe with the crab curled up in- 
side it. “ Come look here, little daughter,” he said. 
“ Here’s a curious thing. I suppose this poor little 
crab couldn’t find a shell, so it had to take shelter 
in this heavy, ugly pipe. Let us look about and 
find a better house for it.” 

“ But would it go into it if it had it ? ” asked the 
child. 

“ Yes, indeed, and be glad of it.” 

The Professor began to search about the beach 
for a better house for the little crab. 

“ I know,” said the child. “ I’ll get one of those 


6i 


I have in my bucket in the carriage. I’ll pick out 
a pretty one, too, because he must have been such 
a poor little crabby to have to live in an ugly house 
like that.” 

The little girl ran over to the carriage, and when 
she came back she had a pretty shell in her hand. 

She put it down in the water in front of the crab, 
and then she and her father waited very quietly 
hoping to see him move into his new home. 

But he was much too frightened. He only 
curled up closer in the pipe. 

It was not until they had been gone some time 
that he had the courage to look out from his shell 
again. 

Everything was as quiet and lonely as ever. 

Then in a twinkling he was out of the clumsy 
pipe and into the new house set ready for his use. 

And what a fine house it was ! Light and pretty 
and just the right size. 

“ I wonder what became of that poor little crab 
they carried off with them,” he said, as he settled 
himself in his new home. “ I wonder.” 

But he never knew. 


62 


JAMES CROW 

His name was not Jim, but James Crow ; and 
a very dignified gentleman he-looked as he walked 
across the lawn all dressed in black, and- cawing 
gently to himself. 

He was a very young bird when we bought him 
from a ragged little boy in the country. 

After we had bought him we put him in an old 
soft hat, closed the brim gently over him and car- 
ried him home in that fashion. 

He was very quiet all the way, and when we 
released him at last he sat all crouched together 
for a while. Then he straightened himself out and 
began to settle his wings and to look about him 
with his round bright eyes. 

Some food was brought in, and a piece was 
offered to him. James gulped it down greedily, 
and immediately all timidity or strangeness was for- 
gotten. 

He opened his beak wide, spread his wings, and 
stooped his body, all the while cawing and crying 
wildly to us for more. 

That was James’ first introduction to the house. 


63 


but very soon he was as much at home there as 
though he had lived with us all his life. 

We clipped the feathers of one of his wings so 
that he could not fly away, and then turned him 
out on the lawn. But James liked the house better, 
and came in upon every occasion. Then nothing 
was safe. He tore the leaves of books with his 
sharp, hard beak. He tore a bunch of peacock 
feathers quite to pieces. He stole everything that 
he took a fancy to. 

Whenever anything was missing — that is any 
small thing — James was immediately suspected, 
perhaps not always fairly. We wondered whether 
he had any special place for hiding things and one 
of the boys said he was going to watch him and 
find out. 

We put temptation in his way in the shape of a 
long bright-red ribbon. We knew James never 
could resist anything as bright as that. We laid it 
on the lawn where James would be apt to see it 
and then Ned hid around the corner of the house, 
keeping a sly watch on the ribbon. 

Presently up came James with his dignified walk. 
He hurried his steps a little as he saw the ribbon, and 
stopped beside it cocking his head this side and that. 


64 


H ere was a find indeed, and no one in sight to 
scold him or to shout to him to drop it. In a 
moment James had seized the ribbon and was 
hurrying across the lawn with it and on down the 
lane. 

Ned followed, taking care that the crow should 
not see him. Down at the very end of the lane was 
an old willow tree. 

James flew up into this with the ribbon, and then 
Ned lost sight of him among the branches. 

Presently James flapped down into the lane 
again. He did not have the ribbon. He stopped 
to rub his beak on the grass. Then he walked idly 
up the lane again, cawing gently to himself. After 
he was out of sight Ned came from behind the 
hedge where he had been hiding and swung himself 
up into the willow tree. 

There he found a hollow among the branches, 
and in this hollow was the greatest collection of 
things, — a ball of yarn, a rusty jack-knife, a screw, 
two apple cores, a peach stone and a silver thimble. 

Ned took the thimble and the jack-knife, and 
then slid down the tree leaving the other things 
undisturbed. It seemed a good thing to let the crow 
still think no one knew of his hiding spot. Then if 


^5 


he stole anything of real value, the loser would know 
where to look for it. 

James was very greedy from the time he was a 
young bird, and it was a fault he never got over. 
His dinner hour was a time when all dignity was 
cast aside. 

As soon as he saw anyone coming with a dish of 
food he would hurry forward with outspread wings 
and loud cries. Stopping in front of the person, 
he would fairly dance up and down in his eagerness, 
cawing all the time. 

As each piece 
of meat was 
thrown to him 
he would gulp it 
down with a stovepipe 

choked caw, and tlien dance and shriek again with 
open beak. 

When the last morsel had been given him, and 
he had made sure of the fact that there was no 
more, he would fold his wings sedately. With his 
usual dignity he would walk away to some quiet 
spot. There he would disgorge the hastily swal- 
lowed meat and eat it again at his leisure. 

One time the boys teased James by putting some 

Pyle’s Humble Friends.— 5. 



66 


meat in the middle of a piece of stovepipe that was 
too small for him to get into. 

The crow tried to squeeze himself in first at one 
end and then at the other. 

Finding he could not manage this after several 
attempts, James lifted one end of the stovepipe and 
let the meat slip down to the other. Then he hur- 
ried around and seized the prize. 

James was like a monkey in liking to imitate 
what he saw others doing. One morning the 
mistress of the house was busy planting some slips 
and seedlings in. flower pots. As she worked, the 
crow walked about her, cawing softly to himself. 

When she finished her work she put the flower 
pots in a row on the porch and went away. No 
sooner was she 
out of sight than 
James was busy. 

In haste, as 

though he knew James and the Plants 

that if anyone saw him he would be driven off, 
he pulled up every one of the plants, laying them 
side by side on the porch. 

Then he looked about for something to put in 
their places. 



6 ; 


On the window sill was a bag of candies, left 
there by little Annie. Her aunt had brought them 
to her the day before. 

With these the crow filled the holes left in the 
earth, covering them carefully with the loose soil. 
Then he went away to look for something else to do. 

When Annie came back for her candies they 
were nowhere to be found ; instead was the empty 
bag. “ I do believe those greedy boys have eaten 
up all my candies,” cried the little girl, her lip 
trembling and her eyes filling with tears. But her 
brothers declared they had not touched them. 

While she was still wondering and complaining 
her mother found the plants where they lay dead 
and withered in the sun. “ Oh, that mischievous 
crow ! ” cried the mother, running her finger down 
into the loose earth. “Why, what’s this?” she 
added, for she felt something hard. She dug it 
out with her finger. It was one of Annie’s candies, 
gritty with soil. 

The earth was emptied from the other flower 
pots and then all the candies came to light. 

The mother said they were spoiled, but Annie 
didn’t think so. She brushed them off very care- 
fully and she and her brothers ate them later on. 


68 


James did not like to be touched or handled. 
He would not allow any of the children except his 
master to pick him up. 

He never showed his really finest manners how- 
ever to anyone but the mother ; when she came 
out of the house he would hurry to meet her, duck- 
ing and bowing in the most absurd manner, and 
cawing softly. 

James’ master tried to teach James to talk, and 
declared that the crow really tried to call him by 
name. The others would hardly believe it. 

But at any rate James could laugh. He often 
used to startle people by harsh peals of laughter as 
he sat hidden among the shrubbery. He seemed 
to be enjoying some huge joke all by himself among 
the leaves. 

All through the summer and winter, James seemed 
very happy in his half-captive life. But when 
spring came, and everything was bursting into bud 
and the birds were busy about their nesting, the 
poor crow drooped and seemed sad. 

He would crouch on the lawn looking up at the 
moving clouds above, and sometimes when he heard 
the wild crows out in the fields he would half spread 
his wings with an answering caw. 


69 


The mother said it was cruel to keep him away 
from his kind, and so his master agreed to let his 
clipped wing feathers grow. 

Even after they had grown, however, James 
seemed in no hurry to leave his old home. 

To be sure he did go farther afield, but he always 
came back at night. 

At last, however, there came a night when James 
did not return, though he reappeared the next 
day. Then he went away again and that time he 
did not come back at all. 

It was not until the fall that they saw anything 
of him. Then one day as one of the boys was cross- 
ing a plowed field a crow flew down on a furrow 
near by with a friendly caw. 

“ James, James !” called the boy. 

The crow cocked his head on one side and seemed 
to listen. 

“ James, come here, old fellow,” said the boy again. 

He went over toward the crow and it sat quite 
still watching him until he was so close that he put 
out his hand to touch it. 

Then it rose with a caw and flew away, flapping 
heavily across the blue sky, on and on beyond the 
hill and out of sight. 


70 


And that was the last glimpse that any one of the 
family ever had of James Crow. 


FIREFLY 

Firefly was a beautiful little chestnut colt 
with one white foot. 

She was a great pet with the children, and she 



Firefly and the Children 


was so tame she would come up and eat grass from 
their hands. Then she would poke them with her 
velvety nose and gallop off across the field kicking 


71 


up her heels, and seeming to say, “ Come play with 
me.” 

Once she caught hold of the end of a handker- 
chief that was sticking from the pocket of one of 
the children. In a moment, with a jerk of her head, 
she had pulled it out and was cantering away with 
it. 

The little boy whose handkerchief it was ran 
after her to get it, but she kept out of his reach. 
She waited until he was so close that he could 
almost touch her, and then away she galloped, 
tossing her head as if to wave the handkerchief. 
All around the field she went, and then coming back 
she stopped just in front of him with alert eyes and 
ears pricked forward. It was as if she said, 
“ Now try to catch me.” 

At last with a quick motion the boy did catch 
one end of the handkerchief. He pulled and she 
pulled, and it ended in the handkerchief being torn 
almost in two. 

The mother of Firefly had been a famous jumper, 
and as Firefly grew older she became a great 
jumper herself. It was diflicult to keep her in any 
field. She would go over a five-barred fence as 
lightly as a bird. 


72 


Her master was very proud of her. 

When she was old enough he broke her to the 
saddle, and he did not like to have anyone else ride 
her. She knew him, and when she saw him coming 
she would turn her head and whinny to him. He 
often brought her an apple or a lump of sugar, and 
if he did not have it in his hand she would nose at 
his pockets to see if he had not hidden something 
about him. 

Firefly was gentle as well as swift and spirited. 
She was the best hunter in the neighborhood, but 
when the children begged to ride her, and their 
father set them in a row upon her back, she minced 
around the lawn as smoothly as she could, trying 
not to jolt them. 

When Firefly was six years old a war broke out, 
and Firefly’s master said that he must go away 
and fight for the right. His wife wept, but she 
did not say no. 

He put on his uniform and Firefly was brought 
around to the door. She arched her neck and 
pawed the ground proudly as she stood waiting, 
The master’s wife and children clung to him and he 
kissed them again and again. Then he came 
hastily down the steps, his spurs jingling, and 


73 


sprang upon Firefly’s back, and away they went ; 
— away from the quiet, peaceful home life toward 
the smoke and thunder of battle. 

Firefly had much to learn in the days that 
followed. She had to learn to march with other 
horses. She had to learn what the words of 
command meant, and the loud and thrilling calls of 
the bugle. 

Then Firefly and her master were ordered 
forward to the place where the war was the 
fiercest. 

At last came a day when a great and bloody 
battle was fought. Firefly and her master were in 
it. At first, as they stood waiting for the order to 
charge. Firefly quivered all over, and the sweat ran 
down her sides like water she was so afraid. 

But when at last the order was given, and her 
master’s troop swept forward, the chestnut mare was 
at the head and all fear was forgotten. Behind was 
the thunder of hoofs, before were the ranks of the 
enemy, and all around was a murderous rain of 
bullets. On went Firefly like the wind, her nostrils 
wide ; one delicate ear pricked back for the word of 
command ; her hoofs beating steadily on the flying 
ground. 


74 


It was a brave charge, but it was not successful. 
The enemy was too strong, and the order to retreat 
was given. 

It was in this retreat that her master was struck 
by a bullet. Firefly suddenly felt him give a violent 
start. She did not see him put his hand to his side 


Firefly and her wounded Master 

however. She did not see that that hand was 
stained with red. 

On he rode, but now he was swaying in the saddle. 
His face grew drawn and white. Then without a 
sound he slipped and tumbled to the ground and lay 
still in a crumpled heap. 



75 


When consciousness came back to Firefly’s 
master the first thing he saw was something chest- 
nut colored and something blue. There was a 
roaring in his ears. 

Then he heard the ping of flying bullets, and 
saw that the chestnut color was Firefly, standing 
over him, and the blue was the sky beyond as he 
lay looking up. 

He was still on the battlefield. He was there 
alone ; alone with the dead and wounded. His 
friends were gone. And yet he was not alone after 
all. His faithful Firefly was with him. 

He was not holding her bridle ; there was noth- 
ing to keep her. She was trembling with fear, and 
she smelled the blood aro-und, but she would not 
desert her fallen master. 

He raised himself on his elbow, and Firefly 
whinnied. Then, staggering, he got upon his feet. 
He mounted Firefly and gathered up the reins, and 
then away they fled, fast, fast across the field, back 
to safety. 

Firefly’s master was so badly wounded that he 
was sent to a hospital. Firefly followed back of 
the ambulance in which they carried him. For a 
long time after that she was not ridden at all. 


76 


One day her master’s wife, her mistress, came to 
where she stood. The mistress kissed her on the 
neck and wept. 

All this while, though Firefly did not know it, her 
master was very ill. When at last he was able to 
be moved he was taken home, for he was not 
strong enough to go back to the war. 

Firefly hardly knew him when she saw him again, 
he was so gaunt and white, and one sleeve was 
empty and was pinned across his coat. 

After a while he grew strong again and was able to 
ride about, but he held the bridle in his right hand 
now. 

Firefly was so glad when she felt him upon her 
back again that she curved her neck and pranced 
proudly. 

“ Good horse,” said her master. He could not 
pat her neck for his one hand held the bridle, but 

his tone was like a caress. “ Except for you ” 

Then his voice broke as he thought of his wife 
and children, and how, but for Firefly, he would 
have died upon that field of battle. 

If Firefly was loved and petted before you may 
imagine how it was with, her now. Even when she 
grew so old that she could no longer be used, there 


77 


was no horse in her master’s stable that was held in 
such honor as she. 


THE STORY OF A SLAVE 

PART I. 

Nipper was a little slave ant. 

She had been a slave from the moment she had 
opened a hole in her cocoon and other slave ants 
had drawn her out, straightened her antennae and 
smoothed out her soft legs. 

Nipper did not know then that she was a slave. 
All around her she saw little black ants like herself, 
hurrying to and fro intent on business. 

Those who had drawn her out of the cocoon did 
not stay with her long, but hurried away to offer 
the same help to others, that is, to draw out from 
their cocoons those who were too weak to free 
themselves. 

Nipper sat there beside her cocoon looking about 
her, but feeling too soft and helpless to stir. 

Presently she began to move her legs a little. 

Then an ant came to her and fed her from its 
mouth with something as sweet as honey. 

That made Nipper feel stronger, and as she 


78 


saw how busy everyone about her was, she began 
to wonder if she could not help them in their labors. 

An ant had stopped close by to arrange some 
cocoons. 

“ Can’t I help you?” asked Nipper. 

The other looked at her. “ Why yes,” she said 
after a moment, “ if you are strong enough, but you 
have been out only a little while.” 

“ I feel quite strong now.” 

“Then you can help arrange these, if you like.” 

Nipper cheerfully set to work. At first she felt 
rather numb and weak, but as she moved, her 
strength began to come to her, and soon she was 
running about as briskly as any of them. 

After a while Nipper noticed that there was a 
difference in the cocoons. Some were like the one 
from which she had come ; some were larger ; and 
others were of a brown color. 

A little later, from one of the larger of these she 
helped to draw forth an ant quite different from 
herself ; one much bigger ; it was red, too, and had 
strong, fierce-looking jaws. 

Wondering, but without saying anything, she 
helped in unfolding its legs, and making its toilet. 
It seemed quite helpless. 


79 


This new red ant sat there for a long time 
getting its breath and strength after its imprison- 
ment. Even after it seemed quite itself, however, 
it still made no effort to stir about or help the 
others. 

Presently Nipper, who by this time was as busy 
as the best of them, spoke to the red ant as she 
passed by. “ Don’t you think it’s time to bestir 
yourself and set to work ? ” she asked. 

The red ant stared at her but made no answer. 
Nipper’s black friend drew her hastily away. 
“ Hush ! hush ! ” she whispered. “ Don’t you 
know any better than to say such a thing to her ? 
She is one of our mistresses.” 

“One of our mistresses!” echoed Nipper in 
surprise. 

Her friend looked at her pityingly. “ My poor 
little ant, ” she said ; “ don’t you know you are 

nothing but a slave ? A little black slave ? ” 

“ No, I didn’t know that ?” 

“ Well, you are. And off beyond there, in the 
larger rooms, live our mistresses, all big red ants 
like that one. All we are here for is to wait on 
them, to feed them and keep their houses in order, 
and to take care of their young.” 


8o 


“But why?” cried Nipper rebellioiisly. “Why 
must we do all that ? ” 

“ Because ” began her friend ; but they were 

interrupted by a sturdy, important-looking black ant 
who joined them for a moment. “ What’s this ? ” 
she cried in a severe voice. “ Idling in work hours ? 
Away with you both. There is too much to 
be done for any such wasting of time.” 

“ Come,” whispered Nipper’s friend, turning 
away, “ we must go back now, but to-night after 
working hours I’ll tell you all about it. And few 
can tell you more than I,” she added with a 
sigh. 

All day long Nipper was hard at work with the 
others. The only rest was when they stopped for 
something to eat. 

Nipper was pleased to find herself beside her 
friend at this hastily eaten meal, but they had no 
time to talk until late that evening when everything 
was tidy and in order, and the bands of toilers 
were preparing for their night’s rest. 

“ And now,” said Nipper eagerly, settling down 
beside her black friend, whose name proved to be 
Riddler, “ now tell me how I came here, and how 
it is that there is so much difference between us and 


8i 


the large red ants. Why should they be our mis- 
tresses, and why must we do all the work for 
them ? ” 

Riddler sat silently moving her antennae for a 
while, and when she spoke at last it was in a sad, 
low voice. 

“ I will tell you first how you came here,” she 
said, “and then you will understand how it is with 
us, and why we never can hope to free ourselves 
from our slavery. 

“It was about five or six weeks ago that I awoke 
one morning to find all the nest in an unusual stir 
and bustle. Slave ants were running up and down, 
and even our mistresses were bestirring themselves. 

“ I knew immediately what was going on. There 
was to be a slave-making expedition that day, and 
they were getting ready for it. 

“ P'or some time we had been short of slaves in 
the nest, and for that reason there had been trouble 
in getting the work done as it should be. Now 
our mistresses had made up their minds that they 
must supply themselves with fresh slaves. 

“ This could be done only by carrying off the 
eggs or larvae or cocoons from the nests of black 
ants. You see if they carried off the black ants 

Pyle’s Humble Friends. — 6. 


82 


who were fully grown there would be trouble about 
making them work in a strange place. 

“What are the larvae?” asked Nipper, for 
everything was still new to her. 

“ Well, you see, before ants are really ants they 
are eggs,” explained Riddler. “ That is at the 
very first. 

“ These eggs are laid by the queen generally, 
though sometimes the others lay eggs too. 

“ Out of these eggs are hatched the little larvae or 
grubs as they are called. These larvae have no legs 
or antennae ; they are white and soft, and very 
helpless, and have to be fed and taken care of by 
the workers. 



Ants feeding Larvae 


“ After a time these larvae or grubs spin cocoons, 
or else a little shell hardens around them, and there 
they lie sheltered and safe while they slowly turn 
into ants. 

“ Then when at last they make holes in the co- 
coon and are drawn forth they are no longer help- 


less little grubs but full grown ants just as you 


are yourself.” 


“ Then I was once a helpless little grub ! ” said 
Nipper wonderingly. 

“ Yes, and I too, and every one of the arits you 
see about us. But to go on,” said Riddler. “ The 
slave-catching expedition was not to start until after- 
noon, and it was only a short time before it was 
ready to go that I and a score or so of other black 
ants were told that we were to accompany it to 
carry home the cocoons that were captured. 

“It was hard enough to be ordered out for such 





Ants on the March 


a duty I can tell you ; — to go with the red ants 
against ants of our own kind. 

“ But, after all, the red ants were not going to 
hurt them, and the cocoons they captured would be 
well taken care of. 

“ At any rate I knew I had no choice in the 
matter, so about the middle of the afternoon when 


84 

the army started I, as well as other black ants, was 
with it. 

“ It was a long journey across rough ground, and 
around a piece of water, but after a while I knew 
by the fresh speed and excitement that scouts had 
brought news that we were coming near the nest 
we were to attack. 

“ I and the other slaves were hurried on with the 
rest, and so I saw almost everything that happened. 

“ The nest was a very large one. There must 
have been many more black ants in it than there 
were ants in our attacking party, but they knew how 
fierce and strong the red ants are in battle. 

“They made little or no resistance and soon hid 
away in the lower part of the nest. I think — I 
hope — that few of them were hurt, but there were 
some brave ones who suffered. 

“ One I remember especially. She was trying 
to guard a narrow door into the nest. A great red 
ant rushed at her, and before the black ant could 
protect herself her head was seized in those terrible, 
strong, red jaws.” 

Nipper shuddered with horror, and drew closer 
to her friend. 

“ Even then,” Riddler went on, “ all might have 


85 


gone well if the black ant had kept quiet. Instead 
of that she struggled and tried to resist. Then in 
an instant those terrible jaws tightened, and when 
the red ant dropped her she was either dead* or 
dying. 

“ She was one of the very few, however, who re- 
sisted, and the others who hid away were left un- 
harmed. Then our mistresses broke their way into 
the large chambers where the larvae and cocoons 
were kept. 

“ After that came our part in the ugly business. \\T 
were given these larvae and cocoons to carry away 
with us. Soon our whole army, loaded with its 
helpless prisoners, was on its way home again. 

“ I have always had especial care of the cocoon 
that I myself carried, and it was from that very 
cocoon that you were hatched this morning. 

' “So now you see how it is that you came to be a 
slave, and why it is that we black ants are content 
to be only that. If a whole nest of black ants were 
not able to defend themselves against a small party of 
red ones, and that in their own country, what chance 
have we here in the red ants’ nest, — slaves as we 
have always been ? 

“ But after all we are very happy here. We 


86 


love our work. We have a good home and plenty 
to eat and drink, and our mistresses are always 
kind to us. What more could we want ? ” 

But Nipper made no answer. Her heart was 
heavy at what she had heard, and to have a good 
home and food seemed not enough for her. She 
wished for freedom, too. 

Note. The facts of this account of the life and battles of the 
Polyergus rufescens, or slave-making ants and their captives are 
taken froin “ The Natural History of Antsf by Pierre Huber ^ 
and “ Ants^ Bees^ and Wasps f by Sir fohn Lubbock. 

Lubbock also speaks of the black ants carrying the red ones on 
their backs from place to place^ a point used in Part //. 

PART II. 

It did not take long for Nipper to get used to 
the life of the ant hill where she lived, and a very 
busy life she found it. 

First of all there was the house to be kept nea-t 
and in order, and this was a great labor. It was a 
large house with many halls and rooms. 

Then there were the eggs to be cared for, and the 
grubs to be fed and tended. Sometimes, if it was 
very hot, all the grubs and cocoons had to be carried 
to a cooler room. Then it would turn cold and 
rainy and they were all carried back again. 


87 

There were other cocoons in the nest differ- 
ent from those of either the red or the black ants, 
and at first Nipper did not know what they were. 

She knew later, however, when out from them 
were hatched 
little Aphides, 
or ant cows. 

These are little 
insects such as 
one often finds 
on the stems of 
rosebushes or 
other plants, or 
sometimes on 
roots under 
the ground. 

They are the 
cows of the 
ants. 

Nipper learned, too, how delicious was the 
honey, or ant-cow milk, that could be coaxed from 
them. Riddler taught her how to stroke their 
bodies gently with her feet and antennae till the 
tiny drop of honey came from them just as milk 
does from a cow, and then how to lick it up. 



88 


The ant cows did not stay in the nest long after 
they hatched, however, but were driven out to 
pasture on some daisy leaves near by 

The red ants never did any of the work. They 
did not even feed or clean themselves. All this 
was done for them by their slaves. 

Nipper, being a strong, lively ant, was one of 
those chosen for outside work, that is, attending to 
the cows, or bringing in food. She worked hard, 
and when night came was so tired that she slept 
without dreams. 

Still she was not happy, for she remembered 
that after all she was only a slave, and she thought, 
“ I would not care how small the nest was, nor how 
poor the food, if I were only free.” 

There were two queens in the ants’ nest, and 
Nipper often heard about them, but only three 
times did she see a queen in all the while she lived 
in the red ants’ nest. 

The first time she was hurrying through a long 
gallery and happening to take the wrong turning 
she found herself in a chamber that was new to her. 

There, surrounded by her guards, sat a very 
large, handsome, solemn-looking red ant, and 
Nipper knew she was in the presence of the 


89 

queen. No one noticed her and she slipped quietly 
away. 

The second time Nipper was helping one of the 
other outside workers to drag a dead beetle. 

Coming around a bunch of grasses near the 
opening into the nest Nipper saw two red ants there 
in the doorway. One of them Nipper knew 
immediately to be one of the royal guard. The 
other was larger and finer, and Nipper recognized 
her as a queen. 

The royal guard had hold of her and was 
drawing her gently but firmly down into the nest 
again. The queen was holding back, but she was 



The Royal Guard and the Queen 

not really struggling. Presently she saw the two 
little slave ants with the beetle and then she 
stopped short and looked at them. After a moment 
she spoke. “You are slaves, aren’t you?” she 
asked. 


90 


The other slave stood staring at her in silence, 
and it was Nipper who answered at length, “ Yes,- 
your majesty,” she said. 

The queen ant looked at them pityingly. “ And 
I am a queen,” she said. Then she repeated, “ I 
am a queen. Do you envy me ? I am scarcely 
more free than you. I wished to go up into the 
light and to see the sky and feel the free wind, but 
my faithful subjects think it best that I should stay 
down in the nest. Some harm might happen to 
me.” 

“Would it please your majesty to come?” 
asked the red ant respectfully. 

“ Oh, yes, I will come,” said the queen bitterly. 

“ Good-by, little slaves. Perhaps it is not the 
hardest thing to be a slave, for you at least can 
come and go at your work.” 

Then she followed her guard down again into 
the gallery. The two black ants stood watching 
her until she was out of sight, and then Nipper said 
pityingly: “ Poor thing ! I think she looked very 
sad.” 

“ Oh, yes,” responded Nipper’s companion, “and 
I really think. that she is more of a slave than 
we. I have heard that the queens are kept as 


9 ^ 


carefully guarded as though they were prisoners. 
All they do is to lay eggs, and even those eggs are 
taken from them and given to us to take care of. 
The queens are not allowed to go out for fear some 
harm might happen to them.” 

“ But how do you suppose the queen managed 
to get this far?” asked Nipper. 

“ Oh, she must have escaped from her guard in 
some way. But come ! We must get on with this 
beetle,” and the two little ants returned busily to 
their work. 

That was the second time in her life that Nipper 
had seen a queen, but she was to see one a third 
time under circumstances that were to change the 
little ant’s life in such a way as she had never 
dreamed of. 

It was a warm day. So very warm that the ants 
were carrying all the larvae to a cooler room. 

Nipper happened somehow or other to be busy 
down in the nest that day. 

The other ants were all so occupied that they 
did not notice a sound that was coming nearer and 
nearer; — a low, deep throbbing on the ground 
like the sound of many feet. 

Nipper indeed heard it and paused a moment. 


92 

“What is that?” she asked of one of her com- 
rades. 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“ That sound we hear. That beating sound.” 

“ I hear nothing,” said her companion, “ and if 
you were attending to your work you wouldn’t have 
time to be bothering about sounds, either.” 

So reproved, Nipper turned to her work again, 
but it was with a sense of fear weighing on her. 

Nearer and nearer came the sound, louder and 
louder. Now every one in the nest, slaves and 
mistresses, workers, guards, and all, could hear it. 

Nearer and nearer it came, and the ants looked 
at each other in dismay. Louder and louder, and 
now suddenly it was upon them. The roofs were 
broken, the earth crushed down into the nest. 
Terrified ants ran this way and that, trying to 
escape. A whole drove of cattle was passing over 
the place where the ants’ nest had been. 

Even in their terror, however, the larvae and 
cocoons were not forgotten. Each little slave 
seized one in her mouth before trying to escape 
from the falling nest. 

Many ants, slaves and mistresses, were buried in 
the ruins of the nest that day. 


93 


Nipper was one of the ants who was fortunate 
enough to escape. Carrying a cocoon in her 
mouth she made her way in and out among the 
trampling hoofs, until at last she found herself in 
a place of safety at the edge of the road. 

There she waited until the drove had passed, and 
then, still trembling with fear, she made her way 
back to the ruins of what had once been the beau- 
tiful and comfortable nest. Already a few strag- 
glers were beginning to return. Nearly all of the 
black ants carried larvae or cocoons in their 
mouths. 

In and out among the gathering crowd, waving 
her antennae wildly, ran one of the royal guard ; 
the very one whom Nipper, had seen drawing the 
queen down into the nest again. 

Wildly she ran about, sometimes bumping 
against the other ants, sometimes running over 
their backs. 

“ Oh the queen ! the queen,” she wailed. “ Oh 
the queen ! the queen ! ” 

“Where Is the queen?” asked Nipper, as the 
red ant ran back and forth in an aimless manner. 
But the red ant only repeated, “ Oh the queen ! 
the queen ! ” 


94 


Slave as she was, Nipper caught the red ant and 
held her. “ Where is the queen ? ” she cried again. 

The red ant looked at her vaguely. “ Oh I 
don’t know,” she cried. “ She was in the nest, but 
I don’t know where she is now.” 

Without a word Nipper dropped the red ant and 
ran toward the opening into the ruined nest. 

“ Where are you going ? ” cried someone ; but 
Nipper did not stop to answer. Somewhere down 
in the nest she had no doubt the poor red queen 
was still lying, deserted by all, and perhaps crushed 
under some fallen earth. 

Along one passage after another went the brave 
Nipper. Sometimes the way was so blocked with 
fallen earth that she had to stop to make her way 
through it. Sometimes she had to go back and 
find her way around by another passage. 

At last beyond a heap of fallen earth she thought 
she heard a faint moan. “Your majesty, is that 
you?” cried Nipper. 

There was no answer, only after a while another 
moan, fainter than before. 

Now Nipper flew like a little tiger at the earth 
that blocked her way. With teeth and legs she 
worked at it until she made an opening. 


95 


Through this opening she slipped and found 
herself in one of the royal rooms, and there before 
her in a sad plight lay the very queen for whom 
she was searching. In sad plight indeed, for a 
lump of earth had fallen on her, pinning her down 
so that she could not move. 



Nipper Rescuing the Queen, 


Close by lay one of the royal guards crushed by 
the fallen roof. Nipper saw in a moment that the 
guard was quite dead. Then she set to work to 
release the queen. 

This was hard work for the little ant, tired as 
she already was. But she went at the task bravely, 
and soon had the joy of finding that the queen 
was free. But her labors were not yet ended. 
The queen was not able to walk, and so Nipper 
took her upon her back. Staggering under the 
weight, she made her way past the heaps of earth 
and back to the mouth of the nest. 


96 


On and on she went, up and down until it 
seemed as though she never would reach the end 
of her journey. Then suddenly she saw the light 
before her, and a moment after she was out in the 
road again and among the frightened groups of 
ants. 

What joy arose when they saw Nipper come 
staggering out with the rescued queen upon her 
back ! Immediately the two were surrounded by 
a joyous crowd. The queen was lifted from Nip- 
per’s back, food was given her and she was gently 
stroked and rubbed. 

When, at last the queen seemed herself again, 
those around her turned to the faithful Nipper. 
“ And you, little ant ; what reward can we give to 
you ? ” they asked. 

At that one said one thing and one another, 
until they saw that the queen wished to speak. 
Then all were silent. 

The queen raised herself and looked around. 
“ My faithful subjects,” she said, “although to-day 
you have me with you again, a little while ago I was 
lying prisoned among the ruins, and there I would 
be still if it were not for this faithful little ant. I 
now propose that as a reward for this service we 


97 


give her the thing that is sweetest to everyone. 
Let her have her freedom.” 

“ Her freedom ! Her freedom ! ” shouted all 
the ants, both red and black. “Let Nipper be 
free ! ” 

But Nipper looked around at them sadly. 

“ Alas, what good would my freedom do me ? ” 
she asked. “ I would be alone, and where could I 
go ? I know no other nest than this ? ” 

“You shall have companions to go with you,” 
cried the ants. “ Choose what slaves you will and 
we will free them too. They shall go with you 
and you can make yourselves a nest of your own.” 

Then Nipper looked about her and chose a 
dozen black ants to go with her as her helpers. 
Among them, you may be sure, was the old ant 
who had carried her when she was a cocoon, and the 
one whom she had helped with the dead beetle. 

The red ants also gave Nipper some cocoons and 
some ant larvae, that from one of them she might 
raise a black queen to reign over the new nest. 

So, carrying these cocoons and larvae carefully 
in their mouths, the little band of black ants set 
out, followed by the good wishes of those they left 
behind. 


Pyle’s Humble Friends. — 7. 


A short time afterward, not far from the red ants’ 
nest, which was now rebuilt, might have been seen 
a large colony of black ants. 

They lived there at peace with their red neighbors, 
and however fiercely the red ants set out on their 
slave-making expeditions that black colony was never 
harmed or disturbed. It was the colony started 
by the gallant Nipper and her little band of faith- 
ful followers. 


THE TAME BAT 

Almost every child is afraid of bats, — they flit 
about so strangely and so silently through the night. 
Sometimes they flit so close that one feels the air 
from their leathery wings, but they never seem to 
touch anything. 

If you catch and examine a bat, you can see 
what a cunning little creature it is. Its head is 
like that of a tiny fox, with eyes like shining black 
beads. Its teeth are small and white. Its body 
is covered with fur as soft as silk, and its tiny hind 
feet are beautifully finished off with little nails. 

Even its leathery wings are as fine and lustrous 
as satin. 


99 


One evening a bat had flown into a room. It 
whirled about here and there so silently and so 
swiftly that the eye could not follow it. 

The girls who were in the room were frightened 
and covered their heads. They had heard that bats 
sometimes catch their claws and wings in the hair, 
and get so tangled up in it that it has to be cut off. 
Many people believe this, although no one has 
ever really seen it happen, 

The brother of the girls had heard of this too, 
but his hair was too short for him to feel afraid of 
its happening to him. He took a tennis racket 
and stood waiting for the bat to come near him. 
When it did, he struck at it. 

He was sure he had hit it, because he had felt its 
body against the wood of the racket, and it had given 
a squeak. He thought he had knocked it across the 
room. But though he looked and hunted he could 
not find it. 

At last he said that he must have struck it with- 
out hurting it and it had probably gone out into 
the night again. Then the girls uncovered their 
heads and went on with their reading. 

The afternoon of the next day the housemaid 
was cleaning that same room. She lifted the por- 


lOO 


tiere to shake it, and then dropped it and jumped 
away with a shriek. 

“ What’s the matter ? ” asked the boy, who was 
passing through the room with his cap on and the 
racket in his hand.” 

“ Och, and I think it was a mouse,” said the 
housemaid. 

“ A mouse !” cried the boy, full of interest in a 
moment, and he too lifted the portiere. 

There in a corner of the door was the poor little 
bat that he had struck the night before. He had 

broken its wing with 
his racket, and it had 
been hiding about the 
room ever since. 

The housemaid 
begged him to kill the “ nasty thing,” as she called it. 
But the boy said he wanted to see what it would do. 

The little thing was almost blinded by the light, 
but it opened its mouth and threatened him with 
its tiny teeth. Then it hobbled a little farther 
away, trying to use its broken wing. 

“ It must be hungry,” said the boy. “ Don’t you 
touch it, Mary, I’m going to get something and see 
if it will eat.” 



The Tame Bat 


lOI 


“ Indeed I wouldn’t touch it for anything ! ” cried 
Mary. “ I’m afraid of the horrid thing.” 

The boy ran away and presently came back with 
some tiny bits of raw meat. 

The poor little bat must have been almost starved, 
for it ate greedily. When it seemed to have had 
enough, and would eat no more, the boy got a 
saucer of water and put it down before it, and the 
bat lapped up the water thirstily, 
using its tongue just as a dog 
would. 

The boy said he was going to 
keep the bat for a pet and see if 
he could tame it. He took a 
starch box and covered the front 
of it with mosquito netting. He 
put a perch across it very much 
like the perch in the bird-cage The Tame Bat 
so that the bat could hang itself up, for that is 
what bats like to do. They hang themselves up 
by their little hind feet, with their heads down and 
their wings folded about them, and so they will 
sleep all day. 

The little bat. Flitters, as the boy named it, 
seemed quite satisfied with this new home when it 



102 


was put in a dark place, and promptly hung itself 
up and went to sleep. 

The sisters of the boy were' disgusted. They 
said that if he wanted a pet he might get some- 
thing better than a horrid bat. They were afraid 
it might get out and crawl about the room, too. 
But, in spite of all they said, the boy kept the bat 
and set himself to taming it. 

He fed it every evening. When he brought the 
food he always called to the bat with a peculiar 
whistle. Soon the bat knew this whistle and would 
answer him when he called. 

After awhile Flitters grew so tame that its master 
let it out of the box. It would come when he called 
it, even in the daytime, though then it moved very 
slowly and uncertainly. It was hard for it to see in 
the light. 

After nightfall it would grow more lively. 

All the family, even the girls, became used to 
Flitters after a time. They never could understand, 
though, how the boy could bear to handle the bat 
as he did, or to let it creep up his sleeve or hide in 
his pockets. Sometimes the bat would hang itself 
from his open hand, hooking its little feet over the 
skin between his fingers. 


103 


The boy’s friends, lads like himself, were very 
much interested in the bat and liked to feed it and 
handle it. Sometimes they gave it flies and small 
insects, sometimes fresh meat. 

Very few of the ladies who came to the house 
liked Flitters, however. They seemed to be afraid 
of the little bat. 

One day a friend of the boy’s mother came to the 
house. She had called for a roll of papers that had 
been promised her. No one being at home, she 
told the maid she would look in the library and see 
if it were there. 

On the table lay a loose roll. “ This must be the 
one,” said the lady. “ I’ll just see.” She picked it 
up and as she did so out slid Flitters, falling upon 
the table. The bat had been taking a quiet nap 
inside the tube of papers where it was dark. 

The lady screamed, she was so frightened, and 
when the housemaid told her it was only a tame bat 
she seemed quite angry that anyone should have 
such a pet. She did not know how cunning Flitters 
could be. 

The place Flitters liked best in the daytime was 
the cloak closet. It was dark and still there, and 
the bat found many fine places in which to nestle. 


104 


But after the girls had found it cuddled away 
in their hats or coat-sleeves several times they were 
careful to keep the door shut so that it could not 
get in. 

This was after Flitters’ wing had begun to heal, 
and it could flutter about a little. The wing healed 
very quickly. The bone knit together and after a 
while it was quite well, only a lump was left where 
the bone had grown together. 

When the bat was well and had begun to fly 
about, you could seldom tell where it was. It would 
generally come, however, when the boy called it. 
It would fly circling about the room as it grew dusk, 
close to the walls or ceiling. It would catch the 
mosquitoes and other insects that it saw there. 

Then the bat began to go out of doors and they 
saw very little of it. Even when the boy called it, 
it seldom came. 

One day a little girl had come out from the city 
with her mother, to spend the night at the boy’s 
home. The children were sitting on the piazza 
after supper and two or three bats flitted past. 

The little girl looked up and said, 

“ Bat, bat, 

Come under my hat 

And ril give you a piece of bacon.” 


105 


“ Wouldn’t it be just like a magician,” said the 
boy, “ if I could call a bat and make it come to 
me ? ” 

“ Yes, it would,” said the little girl, “ but you 
couldn’t do it.” She had not been told about the 
pet bat. 

“ Couldn’t I ? ” said the boy. “ We’ll see.” 

He gave the peculiar whistle that he always 
gave for Flitters. There was no answer. 

Again he whistled, and then one of the bats flew 
in under the porch. 

He whistled a third time and the bat circled 
about his head and finally lighted upon his shoulder, 
folding its wings into the likeness of ungainly front 
legs. 

The little girl could not wonder enough. She 
felt as though the boy were really a magician, and 
was even a little afraid of him. 

The boy took the bat in his hand and smoothed 
and tickled it. Then he let it fly away, and after 
a while he told her and her mother that it was his 
pet bat, and all about it. 

That was almost the last time he ever saw it, 
however. Either it was not with the bats which 
he saw flitting about on other evenings, or it did 


io6 


not care to answer to his call. No doubt the little 
fellow preferred to flit through the air with creat- 
ures of its own kind to living in a house, and being 
made a pet of. 


THE CAPTIVE ROBIN 


I WAS hatched in the top of a tall maple tree. 

The nest where I lived with my little brothers 
and sisters was very soft and warm. Still softer 
and warmer was my mother’s breast as she brooded 
over us. 

My father was a very handsome robin, as I re- 


*^^^ber him. 
^as a good 
s r to us. 
were al- 
worms 
h to fill our 

r y beaks. 

And how happy 



Father Robin Feeding the Children 


we were up there in our nest among the leaves ! 

Sometimes the wind blew so hard that the tree 
where we lived would bend far over. Then across 
the side of the nest we could catch sight of a red 


107 


brick house with tall chimneys— of a lawn, and of a 
shining river with hills beyond. 

Then the wind would pass by, the tree would 
straighten, and we could see nothing above the 
circle of the nest but the green leaves with the sun 
shining through them. 

Every evening our father sat on the tiptop of a 
tall tree just as the sun was setting. He looked 
quite black against the pale sky. There he sang 
and sang ; — sang so sweetly and clearly that all we 
young ones were still and listened. Then home he 
would come, to sleep on a branch close by, while 
our mother brooded over us. Ah, those were 
happy days ; but they could not last. 

We were all strong, stout robins. We grew 
fast. Soon our mother told us that it was time 
for us to learn to fly. That was not pleasant — that 
learning to fly. 

We got up on the edge of the nest. There we 
sat, afraid to try. We were very, very high up in 
the air, and our wings felt strange when we spread 
them. 

Flutter and Flap were very bold and strong. 
They tried without much urging. The rest of us 
were more timid. 


io8 



I am ashamed to say I was so timid and fearful 
about it that at last my mother had to go back of 
me and push me off the nest. Then down I 

went fluttering 
and struggling. 

“ Spread your 
wings,” cried my 
parents circling 
about me. “ Beat 
the air. Fly! 
Fly!” 

But down, 
down I went into 
the long grass. 
My brothers and 
sisters had guided 
themselves to 
trees that were 

Robin in Danger lower than OUr 

maple. There they sat balancing themselves 
among the leaves. 

“ Now it will be harder for you,” said my mother. 
“It is harder to lift yourself out from the grass. 
You had better just flutter along to those bushes 
yonder before you try another flight.” 


109 


Suddenly my father gave a cry of alarm. 

“ Wait a moment ; something is the matter,” said 
my mother, rising to join him. 

I was left there alone in the long grass. 

Both my parents began shrieking. Their cries 
were of terror and anger. They shot past above me 
like arrows, seeming to aim themselves at a place 
in the grasses near by. And now I heard some- 
thing stirrfng and a soft breathing just back of me. 

I glanced fearfully around. There, glaring at me 
through the grasses, were two great yellow eyes 
set in a furry head, and back of this head a great 
dark body. 

I did not know what it was, but still I felt so ter- 
rified that my heart seemed to stop beating. Then 
with a bound the creature was upon me. I felt its 
teeth. It lifted me and carried me in its mouth. 
It was a cat. 

My parents circled above us with pitiful cries, 
but they could not help me. 

I do not remember anything clearly for a while 
after that. It is all dim as in a dream. 

When I looked about me again I found I was 
lying on some soft sand. Above me and on each 
side were iron wires. I was in a cage. 


I lO 


From what I learned afterwards my mistress 
must have seen the cat carrying me, and saved me 
from its teeth. She had saved me, but I was a 
prisoner. 

My mistress was very good and gentle with me. 
Soon I learned to know her and not to be afraid of 
her when she came near me. She fed me, she gave 
me fresh water, and cleaned my cage every day. 
Every day, too, she put a china dish filled with 
water into my cage. In that I bathed. First I 
would light upon the edge of the dish and dip my 
bill in the water, fluttering my wings. Then down 
I would hop, plash ! into the water. I would dip 
down and beat my wings so fast that the water 
would fly round in a perfect shower. When I got 
through, all the cage would be wet. The drops 
would hang from the wires. 

It made my mistress laugh. Then she would 
wipe the cage dry while I preened my feathers and 
rustled them into place. 

Our room was at the very top of the house. 
My mistress did the sewing for the household. 
She was not one of the family. 

Sometimes a little boy and girl came up to the 
room to look at me. They called my mistress 


I 


Sally. She called them Miss May and Master 
Donald. 

One day Master Donald brought a hairy terrier 
into the room with him. It barked at me and 
frightened me so I beat myself against the bars. 
My mistress made him take it out. At first he 
would not, but she told him that this was her room 
and her bird and that she would not have me 
frightened. Then he was angry, too, and he did 
not come any more. 

One day, after my mistress had cleaned my cage, 
she fastened back the door and so left the cage 
open. I thought she had forgotten. I flew down 
and looked out. Then I hopped outside. 

She did not try to stop me. She was sitting 
close by with some sewing. She laid her sewing 
down and watched me. 

I looked all about me, putting my head first on 
one side and then on the other. 

How strange it seemed to be outside the bars ! 
I could see from the window the sky and the tree 
tops. That was where I belonged. 

I spread my wings and fluttered toward the 
light outside. But at the window I struck against 
something. I saw nothing, but something was 


there, hard and cold, between me and the freedom 
outside. It was the window glass. 

I beat myself against it until my mistress caught 
me in her hands and put me back In my cage. 
But after that she let me out of my cage every day 
to fly about the room awhile. 

Sometimes I used to light on the back of my 
mistress’ rocking-chair. It was great fun swinging 
backward and forward as she rocked. 

Sometimes I went to her workbasket and 
pecked at the things in It. There were little red 
things that looked like strawberries, and flat cases, 
and long pins with shiny, black heads. There 
were spools, too, with thread wound around them. 
Once I took the end of a thread in my beak and 
pulled. I pulled it as far as I could, and then I 
tried to fly away with it. There didn’t seem to be 
any end to it, however. My mistress took the 
thread from me and wound it all up again, and 
tapped me with her thimble. 

Back of the looking-glass on the bureau lived 
another robin. He was a handsome bird. He 
lived in a room exactly like the one I lived in, only 
everything was turned the other way. 

We used to look at each other. Every time I 


13 


moved he moved, too. I used to call to him, but 
he never answered me. There was glass between 
us and we could not reach each other. 

Sometimes when I sat on the red pincushion and 
pulled the pins 
out, I would look 
up and see that he 
had been pulling 
pins out of his red 
pincushion in that 
other room. He 
always pulled out 
just as many pins 
as I did. Robin in Mischief 

He was a funny bird. I never grew tired of 
watching him through the glass, but I never got to 
know him very well. 

One day, while I was amusing myself on the 
bureau, my mistress left the room. .She closed the 
door behind her, but I suppose she did not latch it. 

Suddenly I saw the door in that other looking- 
glass room open. In through the crack looked 
two fierce, yellow eyes. A terrible, lank, black cat 
came stealing in. It looked about the room. The 
looking-glass robin did not seem to see it. He 

Pyle’s Humble Friends.— 8. 



14 


was watching the door of 7ny room. I tried to call 
to him, but I could not. I felt as frightened as 
though the cat were after me. 

Then I knew that the cat saw him. Stealthily 
it crept nearer. Would he never turn and see it? 

Suddenly some faint sound made me look be- 
hind me. There was a cat in my room, and it was 
at me — at me — that it glared. 

I sat quite still. I tried to shriek, but my voice 
died away in a pitiful peep. The door opened and 
my mistress came in. Miss May was just back of 
her. 

“ Oh, the cat!” shrieked my mistress. “He is 
after my robin.” She ran at the cat to drive it 
from the room. 

“ Don’t you dare to hurt my cat,” screamed Miss 
May. 

The charm the cat had thrown over me was 
broken. I flew wildly to the window, beating my- 
self against the glass. All was confusion. 

At last the cat was turned out. Miss May fol- 
lowed it saying that the cat should not be treated 
so, and that her mamma didn’t like having that 
nasty bird kept there at any rate. 

Then my mistress took me in her hands and 


kissed me. After that she put me back in my cage. 

And now I was no longer allowed to fly about the 

room except when my mistress was there. 

Outside the window a stout nail had been driven 

in the wall. There my cage sometimes was hung, 

high, high up in the air. How sweet the air was ! 

How the wind 
« 

blew through the 
trees near by ! 

One day a robin 
1 igh ted on a 
branch of one of 
the neighboring 
trees. He sang 
and sang. He 
sang even more 
sweetly than my 
father had sung 
from the top of the 

poplar tree, and I Robin Singing 

listened. 

The next day he came again, and the next and 
next. 

Once he flew over and alighted on my cage. 

“ Who are you ?” he asked. 



“ I am a captive robin,” 1 said. 

He stayed and talked to me awhile and then he 
flew away. I felt very sad. 

But he came again. Every day we talked to- 
gether. I told him my story. I asked him if he 
could tell me anything of my father and mother, 
or of my little brothers and sisters, but he could 
not. I never knew what became of them. 

I did not care now for that other robin in the 
looking-glass room. I did not care to sit on the 
back of my mistress’ chair. When she let me out 
I flew to the window and sat looking out and long- 
ing to be free. 

“ Are you sick, my little robin ? ” asked my mis- 
tress. But I could not tell her. 

One day my robin friend came to my cage. “ If 
you were only free,” he said, “you should be my 
mate.” 

Then he told me how, before very long, he must 
Hy away. The winter was coming. That was why 
the sky shone so and the leaves turned red. Very 
soon the leaves would fall. Then he must go. 

Now indeed I was sad. I pined to be free 
to use my wings in the sky instead of in that 
cramped little room with its one window. 


My mistress bent above my cage one day. “ My 
poor little, dear little Robin,” she said. “You 
were happy enough at first, but now if you wish to 
go it is cruel to keep you here.” 

She reached into the cage and caught me. She 
pressed her lips against me. Then she opened 
her hand. 

I did not go to her chair or the bureau. I flew 
to the window to 
look out. 

A soft cool air 
was blowing in 
from outside. ' It 
stirred the 
curtain. I hop- 
ped u p o n the 
window sill. No 

glass was there. Robin on the Nest 

I spread my wings ; then away and away I flew, 
dipping and rising in my flight. I was free. 

This spring we came back from the South, my 
mate and I. We came back to the house where 
my mistress looks from her little attic window. 

Our nest is built in a tree close by. As I sit on 
my nest I can see the window of her room. 



ii8 

Once I flew on to the well-known window sill. 
My mistress was sitting inside. 

“ Oh, are you my robin ? ” she cried. 

She put down her sewing and came toward me. 
She put out her hand, but I would not let her catch 
me. I spread my wings and flew back to my babies 
in the nest. 

Every morning my dear mate sits on a branch 
near the window and sings and sings for my mis- 
tress. I hope she hears him, for his song is very 
sweet. 

FLORA AND HER CAT 

Flora was not a little girl. She was a lioness. 
She had never seen the great deserts nor the wild, 
tangled jungles that her mother had known, for 
Flora was born at the Zoological Gardens. She 
was the first little lioness that had ever been born 
there, and the keepers of the animals made a great 
pet of her. She was not kept shut up in a cage, 
but was allowed to go free like a pet cat or dog. 

Flora herself had a pet. This pet was a cat that 
had been brought to the Zoo to catch the mice 
that were there. 


Flora grew so fond of this cat that she never was 
happy when it was out of her sight. She carried 
it about with her, holding it by the nape of its neck 
as a cat does its kitten. If it tried to run away 
she caught it by the tip of its tail and pulled it 
back. 

When she slept, she curled herself up around it 
so that it could not get away. 

One day Flora was sleeping very soundly. She 
slept so soundly that she was not aroused when the 
cat awoke from its nap, and stepping stealthily over 
those great yellow paws went outside to take a 
stroll. 

Some time later Flora, too, awoke. Her cat 
was gone. She looked around. There were a 
number of wild rabbits at the Zoo. Just then one 
of them ran past the door. 

Flora caught sight of it. It was going very fast. 
She thought it was her cat running away from her. 
Off she set in hot chase after bunny. People 
screamed and ran as they saw Flora bounding 
across the grounds. 

Just as she was about to catch the rabbit it ran 
down into its burrow. Flora snuffed and whined 
at the hole in the ground. 


120 


A moment later, she saw her cat walking placidly 
across the grass. It really was her cat this time. 

Flora bounded after it, picked it up gently, and 
carried it back with her. Then laying it down 
between her paws she began to lick it with her 
rough tongue, purring with delight. She had a 
wonderful purr, it was so loud and deep. 

As Flora grew larger the keepers were obliged 
to shut her up in a cage. It frightened the people 
who came to the Zoo to see a great creature like 
that at liberty. 

Flora seemed unhappy at first, but she soon grew 
used to the cage, and was as contented as ever, for 
she was allowed to have her cat with her. 

Though the lioness was almost always gentle 
with her pet, she used to tease it at times. One 
thing she did was to walk up and down the cage 
just back of the cat, putting one or the other of her 
front paws on the tip of its tail. Puss would grow 
so angry that it would turn round and spit and 
scratch at the lioness. The lioness would stand 
perfectly still with her head turned away, until puss 
started off again. Then she would follow it again 
placing her paws on the tip of its tail with the 
greatest exactness. 


I2I 



The cat, in its turn, would play with Flora’s tail 
as the lioness lay waving the end of it gently to and 
fro. Puss would crouch down, its eyes gleaming 
as they were fixed upon that moving tip. Then the 
cat’s body would begin to sway from side to side, 
and suddenly it would bound upon the tail, hold- 


Flora and her Cat 

ing it with all four paws, rolling over and over, and 
biting as hard as it could. 

The lioness would look around lazily at the cat 
and try to wave the tail free. Sometimes the cat 
would bite too hard, and then Flora would simply 
lay one of those great, heavy paws on it, and pin 


122 


it down so that it was unable to move until the 
lioness chose to release it. 

One day Flora had a new plaything. It even 
charmed her away from the cat for a few minutes. 
A man who was visiting the Zoo put a toy balloon 



Flora and the Balloon 


into her cage. It was weighted down with a piece 
of paper tied to a string, so that it only floated a 
few inches above the ground. 

Flora was lying with her cat between her paws 
when the balloon was put into her cage. She 
looked at it for a moment or so. Then she rose 
and walked over toward it with half-sleepy curiosity. 
She smelled it and then touched it with her paw. 

Away went the balloon, to Flora’s surprise. She 
followed it and touched it again. Away it floated. 


123 


Flora now began to look more wide awake. She 
hurried after it and this time gave it a good, rous- 
ing stroke with her mighty paw. Instead of being 
hurt, the balloon bounded away as lightly as a 
feather. 

And now began a wild chase after the balloon. 
Up and down and around the cage after it went 
the lioness. At last she got it in a corner and 
struck her paw down upon it. The balloon broke 
with a loud report. Flora bounded as though she 
had been shot, and retreated to the furthest corner 
of the cage. 

There she crouched for some time before she 
gathered courage to go over and examine the 
little, wrinkled piece of rubber which was all that 
was left of the balloon. After that Flora contented 
herself with her cat for a plaything. 

But a sad thing happened. The cat was killed 
by a mowing-machine one day when it was out 
for a stroll. Flora soon began to be very uneasy. 
As time went on and the cat did not return, she 
grew more and more anxious, pacing up and down 
her cage with her head up and her tail waving. 

Now and then she would stop and give a roar, 
looking anxiously up or down the building to see 


124 


if the cat was comino^ in answer to her call. Then 
she would pace up and down and stop to roar 
again. 

The next day her keeper, seeing how distressed 
she was, and knowing that her pet had been killed, 
thought that he would introduce another cat into 
the cage in place of the lost one. 

He went all the way home and brought back a 
house cat with him. He put it into Flora’s cage. 
The moment the lioness saw it she hurried over 
toward it with the greatest delight ; but the cat 
was frightened, and jumped out of the cage. 

It was put back in such a way that it could not 
escape. Flora again went over to it, snuffed at 
it, and then with a low growl struck it such a blow 
that the cat was killed instantly. 

They tried another cat, but she killed that too. 

Then the keeper decided she must get over her 
loneliness as best she could by herself. It was a 
long time before Flora seemed quite happy again, 
and she never had another pet. 


125 


THE TWO WORLDS 

Down in the brook is a wonderful water world, — 
a world that is separated from the world of air above 
by what is called the szcrface jilni. 

This surface film is thinner than anything you 
can think of. It is all over the water like a sheet of 
fairy glass. 

You cannot see the surface film, and you cannot 
feel it, but it is there, all the same. 

It is easy enough to break it. Drop a stone in 
the brook or stir the water with your finger, and the 
surface film is broken and mixes with the other 
water. Immediately, however, another surface film 
forms to take its place. There it is again, like 
fairy glass between that world and this. So the 
two worlds are always apart. 

There are some things, however, that can go 
backward and forward from one world to the other, — 
from the world of air to the world of water and then 
back again, as though they were magicians. 

That is what the whirligig beetles can do. 
Sometimes they go whirling and speeding about 
on the surface film, as though they were skating, 
and it bends under them like thin ice. Sometimes 


126 


they take a drop of air and swim down in the 
water. There they walk about over the stones or 
through the water-weed forests. 

What wonderful things they see there : little 
soft, brown lizards creeping about ; crayfish, with 
pop eyes and long feelers ; fishes flitting through 
the water, like birds through air ; and herds of snails 
feeding on the dead weeds or refuse. 

Sometimes the whirligig beetles climb up a reed 
or piece of grass and so out of the water. They stop 
to rest a few minutes, and then they spread their 
wings and fly away, but they never fly far. Soon 
they come back again. 

A dingy larva was clinging, with its six legs, to a 
piece of water weed down in the water. It looked 
up at the beetles as they skated about. 

“How strange!” it sighed. “They can fly 
about all day in that beautiful upper world if they 
choose, and yet they always come back to the water. 
If I could only fly, how happy I would be ! I would 
never come back.” 

Close by there was another larva. It was differ- 
ent from the first It was mouse-colored,, and al- 
most transparent, except for the spine down its 
back. It was busily eating a water-snail. It held 


27 


the snail in two of its claws, somewhat as a squirrel 
might hold a nut ; then it caught the snail in its 
jaws and pulled it out of the shell and ate it. 

Some day the mouse-colored larva would change 
into a goat beetle, but neither of the larvae knew 
that. 

Now it dropped an empty snail shell and looked 
over at its companion. 

“ Well I don’t know,” it said, in answer to the 
first one’s remark. “ I’m thinking of going out 
into the upper world myself soon. I’m not feeling 
particularly delighted about it though. There are 
worse places than this pond I can tell you.” 

“ Perhaps, perhaps,” said the first ; “ but, oh ! I 
should like it up there, I know.” 

The next day the mouse-colored larva left the 
pond. It climbed over the pebbles and out upon 
the bank of the brook. 

The dun-colored larva looked after it longingly. 
“ Yes, there it goes,” it sighed. “ If I could only 
follow ! But I know I should die up there.” 

It felt very sad as it clung to the water weeds, or 
moved slowly and sluggishly about through the fairy 
forests below. 

It was about a month afterward that the mouse- 


128 


colored larva came back to the brook again. You 
would not have known it if you had seen it, for it 
was no longer a larva. It had changed to a fine, 
large beetle. 

It swam about for awhile with the whirligig 
beetles on top of the water. Then suddenly it 
broke through the surface film and dived down to 
the water weeds below. The dun-colored larva was 
still feeding there. It did not know the beetle as 
its old friend, the mouse-colored larva, in a new form. 

“So, here you are still,” said the beetle. “I 
was just wondering about you, and I thought I’d 
come down and see if you were here.” 

“ Wondering about me !” said the larva. “ How 
could you wonder about me? You never saw me 
before.” 

“Never saw you before!” cried the beetle. 
“ Well, that’s a good joke. Though to be sure I 
have changed since you saw me,” and it swelled it- 
self with pride. “ I’m that mouse-colored larva 
that used to live down here and eat snails.” 

The larva could hardly believe it. 

“ This was the way of it,” said the beetle. “ You 
remember the day I left here ? ” 

Yes, the larva remembered. 


29 


Then the beetle went on to say how all that day it 
had been longing to get out of the water. But 
even when it went at last, climbing up the bank and 
into the air, it was not comfortable. It wanted to 
get in the dark and sleep, so it burrowed down into 
the damp earth beside the brook. There it curled 
up and slept. 

When it awoke, it felt as though its skin were too 
tight for it. “ Ugh ! but that was a horrid feel- 
ing,” said the beetle. “ I wouldn’t like to feel it 
again.” 

However it stretched and stretched itself, and 
presently, crack ! its skin split right open. Then it 
crawled out of its skin, but it felt very weak and 
strange. 

It stayed down in the dark there for quite a 
while until it was strong again. When it crawled 
out, behold, it was a fine, big beetle ! 

“ Why, I can fly about now wherever I like,” 
said the beetle, “but I don’t care about it. I’d 
rather be down in the water. That upper world 
they talk about is rather a poor place in my opinion.” 

But the larva began to pant with eagerness. 
“ So you changed ! ” it cried. “ You changed into 
a beetle. Oh, do you — do you suppose, that if I 

Pyle’s Humble Friends.— 9. 


130 


climbed up and dug into the ground I would change 
into a beetle, too ? Could I, also, fly about in the 
upper world ? ” 

The beetle shook its head. “ I wouldn’t advise 
you to try,” he said, “it isn’t every one who can do 
as I have done.” 

“ Oh, but I wouldn’t be afraid to try,” cried the 
larva. “ I 7nust try. I would go through anything 
to have wings and be able to fly like you.” 

And now, in spite of all that the beetle could say, 
the larva began to climb up toward the surface of 
the water. It climbed slowly, and the beetle fol- 
lowed it. 

When it reached the edge of the brook the bee- 
tle asked with much interest, “ Where do you think 
you’ll burrow ? ” 

“ I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll burrow at all,” 
said the larva. “ Somehow, I don’t feel like bur- 
rowing.” 

“You don’t !” cried the beetle. “Why, how do 
you expect to turn into a beetle if you don’t bur- 
row ? ” 

“ I don’t know, but I don’t think I’ll burrow. I 
think I’ll just cling here to this plant and rest 
awhile.” 


31 


The larva fastened itself to the plant, and the 
beetle sat down beside it to talk. The beetle liked 
to talk. It told the larva all over again about how 
it had burrowed down 
into the earth and 
burst its skin. 

The larva said very 
little. It seemed to 
feel dull. 

“ Why, how curious 
you do look,” cried 
the beetle suddenly. 

“How your eyes 
shine ! They’re every 
color, — blue and green 
and red. And, oh 
dear ! I do believe 
you’re beginning to 
split. How do you 
feel ? ” 

But 



the larva said 


Dragonfly coming out of Larva 


nothing. It, too, knew that something wonderful 
was happening to it. It was swelling itself with 
violent motions. The split in its back was length- 
ening. 


132 



It was still clinging to the reed with its hooked 
feet. With a violent effort it drew its upper part 
back, and out of the shell. Then it rested per- 
fectly quiet. 

“ Dead,” said the beetle, after watching it for 
some time and seeing no motion. But the other 

was not dead. It 
was only recover- 
ing its strength. 

The beetle went 
away after a while, 
but the changed 
larva still hung 
there silent and 
motionless. After 
a time it slowly 
drew the rest of its 
body out of the 
dried shell, and 
crawled farther up 

The Dragonfly the Teed. 

It was a beautiful dragonfly. Its wings were 
clear, but strengthened with delicate veins. Its 
eyes shone with all the colors of the rainbow. 

It still sat on the reed for some time, get- 


133 


ting stronger and stronger with every passing 
moment. 

The beetle, who had come back, stared with sur- 
prise. 

“ Why, is that you ? ” he asked. 

“ Yes, it is I.” 

The beetle stirred its wings in surprise. 

“ And now what are you going to do ?” it asked. 

“ What am I going to do ? Why, fly about in 
the beautiful air, — learn all the ways of this new won- 
der world, — flit faster than the butterfly, lighter 
than the bird.” 

“ And when will you be coming down into the 
water world again ? ” 

“ Never ; I am free from all that now. Good-by, 
beetle. Good-by and forever.” 

The beetle stared after the glittering dragon- 
fly as it dashed away, swift as an arrow, through 
the clear air. 

“Well I never ! ” it said. “At any rate it’s just 
as I said. He didn’t turn into a beetle after all.” 

Then the beetle went back to the pond and began 
playing with the whirligigs. 


134 


THE PARTRIDGES 

One day Mr. Rollins came home from the field, 
carrying his hat very carefully in his hands. 

“ Laura, come here,” he called to his little 
daughter, “ I have something for you.” 

He set his hat softly down on the edge of the 
porch, and when the little girl looked in it she saw 
eight pear-shaped, yellowish eggs. 

“ What are they ? ” she asked. “ Where did you 
get them ? ” 

“ They are partridge eggs. I found them down 
in the field near the wood. Would you like to 
have them ? ” 

“Yes. But what shall I do with them ?” 

“Feel them. They’re still warm. How would 
you like to put them under old Dorcas, the hen, and 
raise a brood of little partridges ? ” 

“ Oh yes, I’d like to do that. And will the little 
partridges be really mine ?” 

“ Yes, they shall all belong to you, and nobody 
else. Come now and we’ll see what Dorcas says to 
the eggs.” 

The eggs were carried to the chicken house, 


135 


and there Mr. Rollins put them in among Dorcas’s 
own white ones. 

The old hen looked at them curiously when 
they were placed in her nest, but she made no 
objections, settling down again as soon as she 
was left alone, and cuddling all the eggs alike 
under her soft, warm feathers. 

After a while the eggs hatched out, — the hen’s 
eggs and partridge’s eggs at almost the same time. 

The little partridges were brisker and less help- 
less than the chickens. Old Dorcas looked at 
them with pride. Still, she made no distinction, 
scratching and clucking for all alike, and the little 
partridges themselves seemed to know no difference. 
They ran about with their little foster brothers and 
sisters perfectly content, and at night they were all 
sheltered together under the hen’s broad wings. 

Laura was very proud of her little partridges. 
The visitors who came were always invited out to 
the chicken yard to see the little things. Laura 
liked to feed them herself. She liked to see them 
pushing softly against each other in their eagerness 
to get the corn meal she gave them, and she liked 
to hear their eager pipings. 

One day Dorcas wandered down into the field 


136 


that bordered the wood. Her brood was with her, 
and now and then she stopped and scratched, calling 
to them to come and get what she had found. The 
little chickens and partridges followed her through 
the sunny grass, peeping softly. 

Presently Laura came down to the field to drive 
them home. 

She was quite close to them when suddenly 
from the shadow of the wood sounded the call of a 
partridge. The little ones raised their heads and 
listened. Again it sounded, and then swiftly and 
silently as tiny shadows all the little partridges ran 
into the woods, slipping in among the bushes and 
undergrowth, and so were lost to sight. 

Laura hunted about for them, and called them, 
and old Dorcas clucked loudly to them to come 
back, but they were gone and the little girl thought 
she would never see them again. 

Some months after the partridges disappeared, 
Laura and her mother were sitting on the porch, 
when, with a loud whirr, something flew past them 
and against the window so hard that a pane of glass 
was splintered. They heard a thud of something 
falling in the room beyond. Laura’s mother put 
down her sewing and hurried into the house. 


137 


On the mantel a full-grown partridge was crouch- 
ing. It must have been frightened indeed to have 
flown in through the window like that. Perhaps 
a fox or a hawk had been after it. It was badly 
cut by the broken glass. 

They took the wounded partridge and put it in 
a cage. They set the cage out on the porch in the 
shadow of the vines. 



The next day they heard another partridge 
whistling to it. It was the wounded ones mate. 
All day it called 
from some hid- 
ing-place among 
the bushes. 

The wounded 
one answered 
the call, but its 
answers grew 

f . , 1 The two Partridges 

ainter and 

fainter. They gave it food and water, but it had 
been so badly cut that when they came to look at it 
the next morning, it was dead. Another partridge 
was on the porch close to the cage. When they 
came out it flew away. It must have been the 
mate that had been calling the day before. 


138 


Laura said she was sure that the dead partridge 
was one of the little ones that Dorcas had hatched, 
and that when it found itself in danger it had 
remembered them, and had come back to them for 
help. 

She buried it in a box under the rosebushes 
and put up a headstone. “ That’s so its mate will 
know where to find it,” she said, but the mate never 
came to look. 


LIMPETY 

It seems a curious name for a cat, — Limpety ; 
I suppose they called me that because I was lame 
and limped. 

It happened — my getting lame I mean — when I 
was quite a kitten. The way of it was that I 
caught my foot in a rabbit trap when I was cross- 
ing a field. Oh, how scared I was when I found 
myself caught, and how I mewed and mewed ! 

After a while I heard some people coming, — 
boys, and they had dogs with them. Then I tore 
my foot loose and ran as fast as I could through 
the tall grass, and so on into a thick wood. There 
I climbed a tree. 


139 


The boys and dogs were after me. I could hear 
them, but I crossed to another tree on a grapevine 
and hid in a hollow. 

I could hear them below me, the boys talking 
and the dogs sniffing round, while I lay there trem- 
bling, afraid to mew. 

After a while they went away. 

When I was sure they had quite gone, I climbed 
down and went on .my way, though my foot hurt 
me dreadfully. It got well after a while, but I 
have limped ever since. 

But that is not where I meant to begin. I meant 
to begin at the very beginning, when I was a tiny 
kitten with my eyes not yet open. 

I was born in a barn. My mother was a barn 
cat, thin and ragged and wild of eye. She was not 
a pretty cat, though she was a kind enough mother 
to us. 

There were five of us kittens, and I suppose we 
were not pretty either; that is, none of us but 
Whitey. She was a plump, gentle, soft, little thing. 
The rest of us were lean and haggard enough, even 
as kittens. 

We lived in a hollow of hay, high up in the hay- 
mow. It was a pleasant place, soft and dark. 


140 


with swallows darting in and out overhead, and the 
sound of the horses and chickens coming up to us 
from the stable beneath. 

I don’t suppose our mother found it as comforta- 
ble a home as we did. She must have been 
hungry often, for, though there were plenty of mice 
and rats in the barn, there were several cats there, 
too. Our mother was no longer young at that 
time, and often and often she would come back to 
the nest not having caught a mouse all day, because 
some younger cat had been quicker than she in 
pouncing on the prey. 

However, we were young and thoughtless, and 
that never troubled us. We lived there happily 
enough, for awhile, as I say. Then one day, just as 
we were getting big enough to think of mousing 
for ourselves, the farmer happened to come climbing 
over the mow. Out of our nest we jumped in 
haste and ran away, some one way and some 
another. 

“ By George ! ” cried the farmer. “ Another lot 
of kittens. This is getting to be too much. Here, 
Tom, I wish you’d get a bag and catch these kittens 
and carry them off.” 

“Yes sir,” said Tom, “ I’ll do it.” 


41 


Presently he came up a ladder from the stable 
below carrying an empty potato sack in his hand. 
We were all hiding in different places. From back 
of a beam where I was crouching I could see 
Whitey cowering in one corner. 

She was the first one caught. She did not 
struggle, but only mewed dismally after she was 
shut in the bag. 

Mouser followed. 

I was the next one caught. I made a hard' fight 
for it, too. We were all, except Whitey, as fierce 
and untamed as any wild animals. 

When the man caught me I did not mew, but I 
turned on him tooth and nail, and bit into his finger 
till my teeth touched the bone. 

He swore, and tossed me from him into the bag 
so hard that I was almost stunned for awhile. 
And there I was. Fighting or biting would do no 
good there. 

In a little while my other brothers were forced 
into the sack one after another, and the mouth of 
the bag securely tied. After that we were left 
lying there for some time. 

We mewed aloud and called our mother, but 
there was no answer. 


142 


After awhile we felt the bag being lifted from 
the ground with us in it, and we were carried for a 
distance. Then came the jar of the bag being 
thrown down, and after that we felt a steady jolting 
motion. 

We had been put in a cart and were being driven 
away from the barn. 

On and on we went for miles and miles, and 
then at last the jolting ceased, the sack was opened, 
and we were emptied out over the side of the cart 
into the road. 

Then the cart drove on, the wheel almost pass- 
ing over Whitey, and we were left there alone. 

No house nor barn was in sight. As far back 
as we could see stretched the yellow and rutty 
road. In front there was still the road, but lead- 
ing through a deep pine wood. We were in a 
part of the world utterly unknown and strange to 
us. 

L have often wondered why, if the farmer wanted 
to be rid of us, he did not drown us at once. 
It would have been less cruel than to drop us in 
that way beside the road, where we ran the risk 
of starving, or of being torn to pieces by dogs, or 
pelted and tormented by cruel boys. 


143 


I have had a sad life. I have known great 
hardships, .but nothing has ever seemed to me so 
heartlessly cruel as the dropping of us helpless 
kittens on that lonely road to live or die as might 
happen. 

I have often wondered what became of my 
brothers and sisters, — whether they starved to 
death, or whether they found a home where the 
people were less hard of heart than that farmer; 
but I have never seen any of them since that 
day. 

After we had recovered from the jar of being 
thrown from the cart, we took counsel together as 
to what we should do. 

Mouser and Frisky said they were going to try 
to find their way back to the old barn. 

Whiskers, a gaunt, fierce kitten, struck off across 
the fields by himself. 

Whitey, who had always been fonder of me than 
of any of the others, said that she would go where 
I went. 

I told her I intended to follow the cart, which 
had gone on and had now disappeared in the dis- 
tance. There seemed no use in going back, since 
the farmer would not allow us to stay, but there 


144 


seemed to me more chance of finding a barn by 
following the road than by taking to the^ field. 

This plan suited Whitey as well as any other, so 
bidding farewell to our brothers, we two started 
bravely on our way together. 

Birds flitted from bush to bush beside the road, 
and in the pine woods I saw a squirrel running 



Whitey eating the Mouse 


like a red shadow along a branch overhead, but it 
was hopeless to think of catching any of these. 

Whitey complained that she was hungry, and I 
myself was beginning to feel that it was long since 
I had had anything to eat. So bidding Whitey 
wait for me by the roadside, I crept stealthily past 
the fence and through the long grass of the field. 

On I went, now crouching and listening, now 
stealing forward on velvet paws. 

At last my hunt was rewarded. Before me. 


45 


busy over a bunch of tender grasses, was a plump 
field mouse. 

A bound, a faint squeak, and a moment after I 
was hurrying back to Whitey with the mouse in 
my teeth. 

Whitey purred with joy as I laid it before her, 
and immediately fell to, not stopping till the last 
morsel of the mouse had been eaten, while I sat 
looking on. 

Not until she had quite finished did Whitey re- 
member that I might be hungry, too. 

“ Oh dear!” she cried. “Here I have eaten it 
all, and now there is nothing left for you. How 
greedy I have been ; ” and the poor, tender little 
thing looked ready to mew. 

I told her it was no matter. I did feel hungry 
but I did not tell her so. I would have liked 
to go back to the field to hunt for another mouse 
for myself, but it was now growing late, and I 
hoped that we were nearing some barn where we 
might find shelter as well as food. 

Just as the sun was setting and all the sky was in 
a glow, we heard a horse trotting, and a light sound 
of wheels. We drew to the side of the road and 
crouched down among the grasses. 

Pyle’s Humble Friends.— lo. 


146 


Presently we saw a horse and buggy. A man 
was driving, and two children were on the seat 
beside him, a boy and a girl. 

When they were almost up to us, the boy cried, 
“ Look at that rabbit.” 

“ Where ? ” asked the little girl. 

“ Over there by the fence. Can’t you see it ?” 

The boy was pointing at Whitey. 

I see it,” said the man checking his horse. 
“ But it isn’t a rabbit. I believe it’s a kitten. Why, 
there are two of them. Don’t you see that gray 
one beside the clump of grass ? ” 

“ Kittens ! ” cried the little girl. “ Oh, papa, do 
you suppose they’re wild kittens ? Couldn’t you 
catch them ? ” 

“ They couldn’t be wild kittens,” said her father. 
“ I suppose some one must have dropped them 
here. There’s no house within a mile or so.” 

“ Oh, they’re so cunning,” cried the child. 
“ Mayn’t I have them ? Please, papa. Oh, please 
get them for me.” 

The little boy, too, begged his father to try to 
catch us. 

The man gave the reins to the boy to hold, and 
jumped from the buggy. 


47 


“ Brother,” whispered Whitey, “he’s coming to 
catch us. What shall we do ? Shall we run 
away ? ” 

I looked sharply at the man. He had a good, 
kind face. “ Stay where you are, Whitey,” I said, 
“ and let him catch you. You’re a pretty, gentle, 
little thing. They will be sure to give yod a good 
home if they take you.” 

“ But won’t you wait, too ? ” asked Whitey, for 
I had slunk further away beyond the fence. 

“No, no; you are pretty and lovable, but who 
would want an ugly, lean thing like me ? Besides 
there would be more chance of their keeping you 
if there were only one instead of two.” 

So Whitey crouched quite still and allowed the 
man to touch her and pick her up. He carried her 
back to the buggy and gave her into the hands of 
the little girl. 

I heard the child petting her and calling her 
pretty names. I heard her begging her father to 
allow her to keep the little “ Snowball,” as she 
called Whitey, and her father said she might. 
Then I heard both children asking him to catch 
the other kitten too, but he refused. “ No, no,” 
he said. “ One is quite enough. What would 


148 


your mother say if we came home with, a whole 
family of kittens ? You’ll be fortunate if she’ll al- 
low you to keep that one. Besides, the other is 
an ugly, dirty-looking thing.” 

Then he climbed into the buggy and they drove 
away, taking my little sister with them. 

Now I was quite alone in the world. For a lit- 
tle while I lost heart. Why should I go on or 
struggle any more ? Why not lie down there 
among the grasses and quietly wait for death to 
come ? 

But soon I shook off this sadness and made up 
my mind that the first thing to be done was to go 
into the fields and try to find something that I 
could eat, for I was growing faint with hunger. 

It was at this time, while hunting about the fields, 
that I got caught in the rabbit trap and was lamed 
for life. 

To take up my story from there ; 

After I had climbed down from the tree as best 
I could with my sore paw, I went across the fields 
and back to the road. 

I caught one or two crickets and a grasshopper 
on the way, and these served to ease my hunger. 

On I went, limping slowly, and just as the dusk 


149 

had settled down over the road I came to the 
outskirts of a town. 

People were sitting in the lighted doorways 
talking together. Dogs barked, and a church bell 
rang. Everybody seemed happy, comfortable, and 
satisfied, except myself. 

Seeing a dog coming down the street I took 
shelter in a corner against a closed door of a shop. 
Presently, worn out with hunger and weariness my 
eyes closed and I fell into a deep sleep. 

I was wakened by the opening of the door, and 
at the same moment some one came out and 
stumbled over me. 

“ What’s that?” said a man’s voice. 

He stooped and put his hands on me. I was 
too worn out to struggle or to try to escape. I felt I 
could bear anything rather than try to move at that 
moment. 

As the man felt my fur he made some exclama- 
tion. “What is it, Ned?” asked a woman’s voice 
from the house. 

“ I think it’s a kitten,” he answered. “ I almost 
fell over it.” 

“ A kitten ! Bring it in and let’s see what it looks 
like.” 


150 


The man lifted me quite gently and carried me 
into a comfortable, well-lighted room. A plump, 
little woman was clearing away the dishes from a 
supper table. 

She stopped with a meat plate in her hand, as 
the man set me down on the floor. 

Oh, what an ugly kitten ! ” she cried. “ I 
want a cat, but I don’t want one like that. Ugh, 
but it’s dirty ! And look at its paw ! It makes me 
sick. Do take it out.” 

“ It isn’t a beauty,” said the man. “ Here’s a 
good chance to count how many ribs a cat has.” 

“ It does look perfectly starved,” the woman 
said. “Wait; I’ll give it something to eat, and 
then you can take it away.” 

She poured out a generous saucerful of milk 
and set it before me, and also gave me some scraps 
of meat. I felt too sick to touch the meat, but 
I drank all the milk and felt strengthened and 
refreshed. 

“ There now, take it away,” said the woman ; 
“and for goodness’ sake, carry it far enough off 
for it not to come back here. 

The man took me up again and carried me 
away through the night. At last he dropped me 


51 


in a half-empty ash barrel. There I settled down 
on the soft ashes and slept until morning. 

Those were wretched days that followed. I 
learned how hard life can be for a homeless cat. 
I learned what it was to be chased and stoned 
by cruel boys ; to have dogs run after one, and to 
barely escape their teeth by slipping under an 
alley gate ; to be scorned and starved and driven 
from one place to another. Still, I managed to live. 
I would find a bit to eat here and there, in the 
street or in back yards. 

Sometimes, as I hobbled along with my lame 
foot, I would see through open windows and doors 
other and happier cats than I, — sleek, well-fed Tab- 
bies or Tommies. Sometimes children would be 
playing with them. I longed to have a home too, 
but who would give house room to a cat like me, — 
ugly, lean, dirty, and lame ? 

After a while I came to be known in the alley 
where I lived. The people there called me Lim- 
pety. Sometimes they threw me a scrap of bread 
or a bone, but no one would take me in. 

At last came winter, hardest of all. Everything 
was frozen. I do not like to think of that time 


even now. 


152 


One day, when I had not had a morsel to eat, a 
dog chased me out from behind an ash barrel where 
I was hiding. Some boys were coming along the 
street. When they saw me running, they gave a 
cruel shout and started after me. 

I knew then that it was a race for life that I was 
running. On and on I went, the boys after me. 
I left the alley and, in my haste, turned corner 



The Flight of Limpety 


after corner, until I reached a part of the city 
where I had never been before. Here the houses 
were quite fine and large. 

It was morning, and there were few people in 
the street. In front of one of the houses a nurse 
was pushing a child up and down in a wheeled chair. 

It was in the corner of the steps leading up to 
this house that I took shelter and turned at last 


153 


to face my enemies. Worn out by hunger, I could 
go no further. I felt that the end was near. 

“ Oh, nurse ! nurse ! ” screamed the little boy in 
the chair. “ Oh, they’re going to kill that cat ! 
Oh, don’t let them hurt it. It’s lame! ” 

It was the first word of mercy I had heard for 
months. The nurse left the chair and went over 
to the crowd of boys. 

The child in the chair was wringing his hands 
and almost crying. 

I do not know just what happened after that. I 
was dulled and hardly conscious. I think the nurse 
gave the boys some money. Then there was 
some talk that was ended by the nurse picking me up 
as though she were afraid to touch me. A man 
servant came out from the house and carried the 
little boy in, while the woman followed with me. 
H ow warm and beautiful and soft it was in the 
room where they carried us! 

A lady rose to meet us as we came in. Oh 
what a hideous cat 1 ” she exclaimed. “ Don’t bring 
that in here, nurse.” 

“ Oh yes, mamma ; it must come in,” cried the 
child. “ Don’t you see ? It’s lame like me.’' 

The lady paused for a moment looking at the 


154 


child with eyes that were very sad. Then she said 
very gently, “ But, Arthur dear, it is such a dirty 
cat. We will keep it if you wish, but let it be taken 
down to the kitchen.” 

But no, the little boy would not have that either. 
He wanted me there in the room with him. He 
seemed to like me. 

I suppose it was for the reason the child 
had spoken of — that we were both lame — that he 
loved me so, for he was lame, too, as I could see 
now. 

And so I had a home at last and not only a 
home, but a master so kind and loving that I don’t 
believe any cat ever had such a one before. 

What games we used to have together ! As a 
kitten I had never played much, .except just at first 
in the barn with my brothers and sisters. After 
that I was too lonely, and wretched, and hungry. 
I don’t think my little master had ever played 
much, either. 

But now he and I would play together by the 
hour with a bit of paper and a string. How he 
would laugh, throwing his little head back on the 
cushion ! Sometimes he laughed so hard that his 
mother would say, “Not too much, Arthur; not 


155 


too much. Stop your play for a while now, and I 
will read to you.” 

Then the paper and string would be put away. 
He would call me to him, and I would snuggle 
against him, soft and warm, and purr and purr. 

He loved my purring. He would have me 
sleep on his bed 
at night and 
sometimes he 
would waken in 
the night and 
reaching down 
would pull me 
softly by the 
ears. “Come, 
wake up, dear 

Limpety,” he Limpety and his Master 

would say. “ I can’t sleep. Purr, to me, purr.” 

Then I would stretch myself, and purr and purr 
until, the lids fell over the blue eyes and the soft 
breathing told me that he was asleep. 

Sometimes he was sad. Then he would put his 
hand on my fur and smooth me softly. “ Poor 
old Limpety. We’re both lame, aren’t we?” he 
would say. “ Poor little cat.” 



156 


But generally he was very happy. 

I am growing old — very old — now ; little Arthur 
is still little Arthur and always will be. But we 
neither of us care so much for play as we used to. 
He loves me just as dearly as ever, though. 

Often we will sit for hours at the open window, 
I purring gently, he with his book open before 
him, and his eyes fixed on the blue sky and the 
clouds above the houses opposite. 

I wonder what he is thinking about. 

I think a good deal myself. I think of the old 
days in the barn. I think of my mother and my 
gentle little sister, of the hard days after I left 
them, and that our new cook doesn’t thicken the 
chicken gravy as well as the other one did, and 
then I flick my ear. 

Oftenest I thank my lucky stars that I was a 
poor, lame, stray cat, since my very lameness brought 
me such a home and such a master as I have now. 



157 



THE OPOSSUM FAMILY 


Mother Opossum had chosen a curious place 
for her home. It was an old, unused barrel in 
the corner of a shipyard. There she lived very 
quietly for nobody knows how long, in spite of the 
noise and clangor all about. 

She came out only at night, and then the ship^ 
yard was deserted. Everything lay as silent and 
lonely as in the deep forest. More silent, indeed, 
for in the woods there would have been the rustling 
of the leaves. Here there was nothing but the 
footsteps of the night watchmen sounding now and 
then through the stillness. 

At first Mother ’Possum was very timid and 
watchful, but after awhile, as nothing happened to 
frighten her, she grew bolder. She would come 
out and wander off on quite long journeys in search 
of food. She was always careful, however, to be 
at home before the daylight came, or the workmen 
were back at their toil. 


158 


But one night I think that Mother ’Possum must 
have gone farther than ever before ; or perhaps 
she was late in starting out. In any case, it was 
broad daylight when she reached the shipyard and 
hastened along among the timbers, still quite a 
distance from the barrel. 

Patrick, one of the laborers, was driving a mule 
across the yard. The mule was walking along, 
half asleep, his head low, his ears wagging. After 
him, on the narrow track, rumbled a truck filled 
with iron castings. Suddenly the mule started 
and stopped, his ears pricking up. Directly in 
front of him, crossing the very track, was the 
strangest looking creature he had ever seen. It 
was as large as a cat, but it wasn’t a cat. Its tail 
was like a rat’s, but it wasn’t a rat. It was alto- 
gether strange and unexpected. 

In a moment Jim, the quietest of mules, had 
whirled round in the harness and was madly trying 
to climb on the truck and out of danger. At least 
that was what Patrick said. 

By the time he had Jim quieted down and in 
place again, the opossum had disappeared. 

“ I’ll find her, though, if she’s anywhere about 
the place,” said Patrick. And so he did, that very 


59 



evening, after a search of nearly an hour. He 
found her at home in the barrel in the neglected 
corner, and there with her were nine little opos- 
sums — her babies. 

Tiny little things those babies were. So small 
that they could all get into the soft, warm pouch 
that Mother ’Possum has just under her stomach. 


Little Opossums and their Mother 

In this way she could carry them about with her 
where she chose, and feel sure that they were safe. 

Patrick stared and wondered, while Mother 
’Possum opened her mouth and threatened him if 
he should dare to touch her or her babies. 

Then Patrick put a board over the barrel so that 
the opossum could not escape, and weighted it 


i6o 


down with rocks. “ I’ll jest keep you in there and 
maybe I can sell you,” said Patrick. 

Sure enough the next day he found a darky 
who would be glad to buy the opossum from him. 
The darky was so pleased at the thought of the 
feast which the ’possum would make, served up at 
dinner with roasted sweet potatoes and onions, that 
he grinned like an ogre. 

While Patrick and he were still bargaining, one 
of the young clerks in the office happened to over- 
hear them. “ An opossum and young ones ! ” he 
cried, “ Why, I’ll buy them, Pat. I’ve always 
wanted to see if opossums are really untamable. 
The natural histories say they are.” 

So Mother ’Possum was saved from the pot or 
oven, for that time, at least. Instead, she and her 
babies were taken to the young clerk’s room and 
made at home in a fine, big cage. 

But it seemed for a while as though Mother ’Pos- 
sum meant to starve herself to death. She would 
not eat anything. Milk, raw eggs, raw meat, and 
chicken were offered to her, but she would not 
touch them. 

One morning her master had nothing for her 
but condensed milk that he had for his coffee. 


i6i 

More as a joke than anything else, he offered her 
some of this and found that she ate it greedily. 

The next thing she condescended to eat was a 
piece of rhubarb pie ; then some hard-boiled eggs. 
These things seemed to complete the list of what 
she would eat, until her owner shot a sparrow and 
put it in her cage, and she finished it, — feathers, 
bones, beak and all. 

After this she was fed almost entirely on spar- 
rows, and soon she began to get fat again, for she 
had grown very thin after she was first shut in her 
cage. 

But, though Mother ’Possum grew fat and 
hearty, her owner could never tame her. Even the 
little ones were always as wild as when they had 
first been lifted from the barrel, and whenever 
any one came near, they would open their mouths 
threateningly. 

They were too little and young, really, to be 
able to bite, and the young man often took them 
out and handled them, though they never grew 
used to this. He would amuse himself by stretch- 
ing a piece of rope across the room and hanging 
all nine of the little ’possums along it in a row by 
their tails. He would twist their little tails about 


Pyle’s Humble Friends. — ii. 


i 62 


the rope and leave them there, head downwards, 
and there they would swing. 

When they were first hung up they would try to 
climb up their own tails and get hold of the rope. 
Sometimes they succeeded in doing this, and some- 
times they didn’t. If they didn’t, they would soon 
give up struggling, and instead would begin clasp- 
ing and unclasping their little forefeet despairingly. 
All their feet were shaped curiously like hands. 

They were stupid little things, not at all like 
racoons, which are as intelligent and mischievous 
as monkeys, and their owner soon found they were 
not of much value as pets. However, after having 
fed them and kept them in his room for some 
weeks he could not bear the thought of turning 
them loose where they would be likely to be killed 
and eaten. Besides, it did not seem right to set 
them free near any houses, for opossums are fond 
of eating chickens and eggs, and he feared the 
neighboring poultry might suffer. 

So one day the young clerk hired a horse and 
wagon, fastened Mother ’Possum and her family in 
a good stout bag, and drove away with them. 

He drove for miles and miles, far down a 
swampy neck of land where no one lived. There 


in the depth of a wood, he stopped the horse, 
lifted out the bag, untied the fastening, and 
gently shook Mother ’Possum and her brood out 
upon the ground. 

For a little while they stood as though dazed by 
their long ride, or perhaps not believing freedom 
was really offered to them; but, at last, first one 
and then another crept away through the under- 
brush, going faster and faster as they felt them- 
selves getting out of reach. 

When the last one had disappeared, the young 
man got into the wagon, and drove slowly back 
the way he had come, — back to his room, where 
the empty cage awaited him, and the rope that 
would never again be clasped by the little ’possums’ 
tails as they swung there in a row. 

POLLY 

Paulina was a parrot. Paulina was her name, 
but she was always called Polly. 

Paulina’s mistress had had a great many parrots, 
but they had all died. Then Polly was sent to her. 

Polly was a beautiful bird. She was of a soft, 
gray color, all except her tail ; that was red — a 


164 

red so brilliant that it seemed to burn in the sun 
like a bunch of geraniums. 

“ The bird is beautiful,” said the lady, “ but what 
a pity to send it to me. My parrots all die.” 

“ If you want it to live,” said a friend, “ don't 
give it any water.” 

“Not give it any water!” said the lady. “I 
never heard of such a thing.” 

“ All your parrots die. That’s because you give 
them water. If you want this one to live, don’t 
give it any.” 

Polly’s mistress followed this advice. The par- 
rot did not seem to suffer for want of water. 
From year’s end to year’s end it did not have any, 
and it lived and throve. 

The mistress bathed the parrot herself. She 
put it in the bathtub, and rubbed it with soap and 
water. This always made the parrot furious. It 
would shriek with rage. She had to be very care- 
ful then to hold it so it could not bite her. 

Except when it was being bathed, the parrot was 
very fond of its mistress. 

It would call to her at the top of its voice when 
she was out of the room. When she came in, the par- 
rot would talk to her with soft little throat notes, put- 


ting its head down against the bars of the cage and 
ruffling up its feathers. It wanted her to scratch 
its head. 

Polly was very jealous of a canary whose cage 
hung in the same room. 

If the mistress spoke to the canary, the parrot 
would shake the bars of the cage, biting them with 
its hard beak and screaming. 

This screaming was very harsh and unpleasant. 
To break Polly of this habit, the mistress would 
cover the cage with a black cloth whenever it began. 

Then from under cover, the parrot could be 
heard talking to itself. “ Poor Polly. Want to 
go to bed, Polly ? Want to go to bed ? Poor 
Polly, want to go bed ? ” Then, with sudden 
energy, “ no^ no ! Poor Polly i” 

Bobby, the canary, was a fine singer. As long 
as no one was in the room, Polly would sit listen- 
ing to the song very quietly. The mistress could 
see the parrot through the crack of the door, sit- 
ting silently on its perch. It would turn its head 
first on one side and then on the other, and click 
its beak approvingly. The moment any one came 
in, however, Polly would try to drown out the 
canary’s song by talking or screaming. 


One day a very sad thing happened. A cat got 
into the room where the 
cages of the two birds 
hung. When the mistress 
came in to feed them, noth- 
ing was left of poor Bobby 
but two or three yellow 
feathers scattered about. 

The wires of the cage 
were bent apart where the 
cat had reached through. 

The parrot was sitting very quietly and thought- 
fully on its perch. As its mistress came in, Polly 
said in a hoarse voice, “ Poor Bobby ! Poor Bobby ! 
Bobby want his head scratched ? ” 

After Bobby was gone, 
Polly did not scream so 
much. 

There was a little dog 
named Gyp that lived in 
the house. 

Polly learned to imitate 
the whistle that called 
Gyp to go for a walk. A 
dozen times a day Polly would whistle for him, and 




Polly 

It had eaten Bobby. 


16/ 


a dozen times a day Gyp would start up and come 
rushing in all ready for a walk. 

The moment he came in Polly would be per- 
fectly silent. Gyp would look all around the room 
and then run out into the hall. 

As soon as he had gone, Polly would whistle 
again. Back would come the little dog, trembling 
with eagerness. 

Then Polly would whistle again, going into peals 
of harsh laughter. Gyp, finding he had been 
fooled, would leap up at the cage, barking and 
snapping his teeth with helpless rage, but he never 
seemed to learn any better. The next time the 
parrot called, he would come running in just as 
before. 

The parrot was very accomplished. At one time 
it had belonged to a concert singer. It could sing 
“ Coming through the Rye,” “ Alice Ben Bolt,” 
and three other songs. Beside these it sang a 
negro hymn that began : 

Nobody knows de trouble I see, Lord ; 

Nobody knows de trouble I see.” 

They said that at one time an old negro woman 
had had charge of Polly. The parrot used to sit on 


1 68 

the back of her chair while she rocked and sang 
this hymn over and over. 

The parrot would only sing this in one way. It 
had to be shut up in a shawl or towel, or something 
of the kind, and swung about. For a while it 
would be perfectly quiet. Then, as it swung, it 
would begin to sing this hymn. It would sing it 
as long as the swinging continued. 

. Polly sang and talked so well that a friend of 
her mistress asked if she might not send her parrot 
over to visit Polly for a while. She hoped that 
this other parrot, whose name was Punch, might 
learn something from Polly. 

For awhile after Punch came, Polly was perfectly 
silent. She was observing him. 

Punch knew two sentences. He could say, 
“ Punch wants a cracker,” and “ Scratch Punch’s 
head.” He also knew part of a song called 
“ Pretty Polly Hopkins.” 

He sang this song in a very curious way. He 
would sing a few notes and then skip to quite 
another part of the song like this : 


Pretty, pretty Polly Hop — 
do, how d’ye — 


169 


— the better Tom — Tompkins 
— seeing of you.” 

Polly listened to this attentively. 

At last one day when Punch was singing it, she 
burst into a peal of laughter. Punch stopped as if 
abashed. Then 
Polly spoke for 
the first time since 
Punch had come. 

“ Sing, Punch, 
sing,” she said. 

“Poor Punch, 
sing.” 

After a while 
Punch began to 
sing again. Then 
Polly burst into 
peal after peal of 

harsh laughter. “ sing, Punch, sing ” 

It was very amusing to watch the two parrots. 
Again and again Polly would ask Punch to sing. 
Then, as soon as he did so, she would begin to 
laugh, and Punch would stop singing and look 
sulky. 

One lovely spring afternoon, the parrots’ cages 



were put out in the trees, that they might enjoy 
the soft air and the sunlight. Polly’s mistress 
went for a drive and the parrots were forgotten. 

In the chill of the late afternoon, as the mistress 
came home, she heard a doleful voice from above. 
“ Poor Polly. Want to go to bed, Polly? Want 
to go to bed ? ” 

The parrots were taken in, and they must have 
been glad to get back into the warmth of the 
house. 

After Punch was sent back to his home Polly 
drooped for a while. She seemed to miss him. She 
would call, “ Punch ! Punch ! Punch ! ” at the top 
of her voice and then turn her head to one side 
and listen. 

One day as her mistress was coming home from 
a walk, she saw a group of boys and men about a 
tree. One boy was climbing it. 

“ What’s the matter ? ” she asked. 

“ It’s a parrot, ma’am,” said one of the men. “ I 
don’t know where it came from.” 

At that moment a familiar, hoarse voice in the 
tree called, “ Punch ! Punch ! Poor Polly ! ” 

“ Why that’s my parrot,” cried the lady. 

She went nearer and looked up into the tree. 


I/I 


She saw a glint of scarlet among the leaves. 
“ Polly, Polly!” she called. “Come, Polly.” 

The parrot only flapped its wings as if to fly. 

“ Pll give a dollar to anyone who’ll get that par- 
rot for me,” said the lady. 

One of the boys crawled slowly out on the limb 
where the parrot sat. He put out his hand. 
“ Poor Polly I ” said the parrot, and away it flew. 
The boys tried to^ follow it, but they lost sight of 
it after a while. 

The mistress never knew how Polly had escaped, 
— whether some one had left the cage door un- 
fastened, or whether the parrot had learned to 
unhook it for itself. But she never saw her pet 
again, though she advertised and offered a reward. 
She never had another parrot. She said she was 
too unlucky with them. 


THE PET LAMB 

A BLIZZARD had been raging all night long. 
The air was white with flakes of snow ; the wind 
howled across the fields ; in some places it heaped 


1/2 


the snow higher than a man’s head ; in other places 
it swept the ground almost bare. 

One of the places where the ground was almost 
clear was over at the sheepcote, a sort of loosely- 
built shed, where the sheep could take shelter in 
cold or stormy weather. 

There they were huddled now. Their thick 
wool kept them warm ; but with them were a num- 
ber of little, new born lambs, so small and tender 
that they would die in the cold unless some help came 
to them soon. One of them seemed dead already. 

“ Baa-a-a ! ” cried the mother sheep, but the 
lamb did not stir, nor try to rise from the ground 
where it lay. 

Help was near, however. Very soon after day- 
light, two men came to the sheepcote. One was 
Mr. Brown, who owned the farm where the sheep- 
cote was ; the other was a farm servant. 

“ Only just in time, William,” said Mr. Brown. 
“ Some of these would have been dead in a little 
while.” 

They put the lambs in two great sacks which 
they had with them, and carried them away. The 
mother sheep bleated after them. 

The helpless lambs were carried across the 


173 


fields, through a garden, now bleak and snowy, 
and into the large, warm kitchen of the farmhouse. 

There Nelly, Mr. Brown’s daughter, was ready 
for them. She had some milk warming on the 
stove. The lambs were taken from the sack. 
They were too chilled and weak to stand. Nelly 
mixed some whiskey with the warm milk, and then 
she and her father 
poured it down the 
lambs’ throats by spoon- 
fuls. Those that 
seemed weakest were 
attended to first. 

Soon all the lambs 
began to revive ; even 
the very little one that 
had seemed dead, 
though they had to 
work a long time over it. 

The weather was so bitterly cold that Mr. 
Brown was afraid the lambs would die if they were 
taken out again, even as far as the barn, so for 
several days they were kept in the kitchen. A 
bed of hay was made for them in one corner, and 
fenced about with chairs, so that they could not 



174 


get out. Several times a day they were fed with 
a gruel made of corn meal, water and milk. 

At the end of four or five days the weather was 
so much milder that the lambs were taken back 
to their mothers. Only one was still kept at the 
farmhouse, — the little one that had almost died. 
It was so puny and weak that Nelly said she was 
going to keep it, and try to bring it up by hand. 

She was so successful that Tiny, as she named 
the lamb, lived and throve. Soon he was the pet 
of the whole family. He trotted upstairs and 
downstairs, wherever he chose to go, and even into 
the cellar. 

In the cellar the old mother cat had a family 
of kittens. There was nothing the lamb liked 
better than to get into the box with those kittens. 
There he would snuggle up to the mother cat, and 
lie quietly for an hour at a time. 

After a while when Tiny was turned out of 
doors, he made friends with the two dogs, Jock and 
Dandy. 

Jock was Tiny’s particular playmate. They had 
regular games together. The lamb would leap 
from the ground, and then butt at Jock. Jock 
would pretend to be very much frightened, and 


175 


run around the house with Tiny in pursuit. Then 
suddenly, he would turn with a bark and chase 
the lamb, which would run in its turn. 

Sometimes pigs got into the yard, and the dogs 
were sent to drive them out. Tiny ran with them, 
just as though he were a dog, too. He could not 
bark, but he put down his head and butted at the 
pigs, scaring them almost as much as the dogs did. 

When Tiny grew to be a big sheep he was sent 
down to the pasture with the rest of the flock ; 
but he had lived at the house with people and 
dogs for so long that he would have nothing to 
do with sheep ; he did not even know his mother, 
nor did she know him. He kept quite away from 
the others, over in a corner by himself, and baa-ed 
plaintively. 

When Nelly came down to the sheep pasture to 
see how he was getting on, he rushed to her. He 
nuzzled his nose in her hand, and was so delighted 
to see her that she took down the bars and let him 
come out. 

He followed her home very quietly, keeping so 
close to her that her skirts brushed against him all 
the way. 

Before Tiny had been sent to the sheep pas- 


76 


ture he had been a greedy and impatient sheep, 
but after he came home again he was very quiet 
and well behaved. He no longer acted like a 
spoiled child. He did not beg and fret at the 
kitchen door for milk, but grazed about the lawn 
very quietly and humbly. It seemed as though he 


meant to show 
how good and 
grateful he would 
be if only he were 
allowed to stay 
where people 
were, instead of 
being sent down 
among all those 
strange and un- 
known sheep. 



The Pel Lamb 


Tiny was gentle 


and familiar with all the family, but the only one 
he seemed really to love was Nelly. 

He used to wait at the door for her in the 
morning, and then follow her about like a dog. 
He enjoyed going for a walk with her more than 
anything else, particularly if the dogs went too. 
He would not go for a walk with any other mem- 


bers of the family. He would follow them to the 
gate, but not a step further. There he would 
stand, looking wistfully after them as they went 
down the road, the dogs barking and leaping 
about. Then he would go back to the house, push 
open a door, and go upstairs and downstairs until 
he found Nelly. Once sure that she was in the 
house, he was content to graze about the lawn by 
himself. 

But as Tiny grew older he began to show a very 
bad temper. First, he grew cross toward stran- 
gers ; then he chased the dogs if they came near 
him. At last, even the children grew afraid of 
him ; that was after one of them had tried to pat 
his head, and he had butted her over. With Nelly 
only was he still gentle and affectionate. 

“ He’s getting to be a perfect nuisance,” said 
Mr. Brown. “ We’ll have to keep him down at 
the pasture with the others.” 

“ Oh, but he’s so unhappy there,” pleaded Nelly. 
“ Please don’t send him away. He wouldn’t be 
cross if the children would keep away from him.” 

So Tiny was allowed to stay near the house a 
little longer. 

Then Nelly went away for a visit. When she 

Pyle’s Humble Friends.— 12. 


1/8 


came home she was so busy at first, telling of all 
she had seen and hearing the home news, that she 
did not think of Tiny. When she remembered him, 
she went to the door and looked about. 

“ Where’s Tiny ? ” she asked. 

Then her father told her that after she had left, 
the old sheep had grown so very cross that they 
could not stand him any longer. He had been 
sent away with some other sheep, and she would 
not see him again. 

“ Poor, poor, old Tiny !” said Nelly, but in her 
heart she was not very sorry. 


WHAT BECAME OE THE KITTENS 

Blackie was a very uncommon cat. She was 
so intelligent that sometimes it seemed as though 
she must understand what was said to her. 

She could climb like a squirrel. One day Alice 
saw her in the very top of the Lombardy poplar, 
the highest tree on the place. There she was, 
swinging about in the wind like a black spot 
among the leaves. 

Blackie was a fine mouser. She was also an 


79 


enemy to all strange dogs. She would not allow 
one in the yard if she were there. She would fly 
at him and drive him out, whatever his size. If 
she happened to be looking out of the window and 
saw a strange dog outside, she would arch her back 
and spit, and it almost seemed as though she would 
jump through the glass to get at him. 

She once jumped through a window pane to get 
at a bird that had lighted on the sill outside,but she 
was so cut by the glass that it taught her a lesson. 

Blackie never liked to be stroked or petted as 
most cats do. Sometimes when she was very 
sleepy she would allow herself to be smoothed for 
a few moments, and then suddenly she would give 
a growl, her yellow eyes would open wide and she 
would leap to her feet and spring away out of reach. 

When she had kittens she was gentler. She was 
always a very good mother and very proud of her 
young ones. 

One time she had four kittens, all just alike and 
all black like herself, with scarcely a white hair on 
them. She had made a nest in the garret back of 
an old trunk, and there she hid them. They were 
several days old before any one found them, so 
cleverly had Blackie tucked them away. 


i8o 


“ We can’t keep them all,” said Mrs. Robbins. 
“The cook will take one and Maria another, but 
two of them will have to be drowned.” 

Charley was the one who was to do the drown- 
ing. His father promised to give him fifty cents 
when it was done. The boy waited until Blackie 
had left the kittens alone one day, and then he 
went up to the garret and carried two of them away. 
He took them back of the woodshed. 

“ Charley, did you get rid of those kittens to- 
day ? ” his father asked that evening. 

“ Yes, sir. I drowned them this morning.” 

From that very day Blackie seemed to hate 
Charley. She would not let him come near her. 
Once he was going to the garret for something, but 
she met him on the steps. Her tailed swelled. 
She glared and spit and growled, so that he was 
actually afraid she would fly at him. 

Charley could not understand it. He had not 
done anything to her, and she had always seemed 
to like him before. The only thing he could 
think of was that she might have seen him drown- 
ing her kittens, and hated him on that account ; 
but that was hard to believe. 

The two kittens that were left grew and throve, 



and after a while they were large enough to come 
downstairs. Blackie was very proud of the notice 
they received from the family, and would sit wav- 
ing her tail softly, and blinking with content, while 
Alice played 
with them or 
petted them. 

One day when 
Blackie and her 
kittens were in 
the library, 

Charley went 
past the garret 
steps. Some 
sound made him 
look up. There, 
to his amaze- 
ment, were two 
strange black 
kittens playing 
at the head of 

, . Charley and the Kittens 

the stairs. 

When they saw him they stopped playing, and 
silently vanished, like shadows, through the attic 
door. 


i 82 


Charley went upstairs and looked about. No 
living thing was to be seen. He moved the trunks 
about, and presently from behind one of them the 
two kittens darted out and ran to another hiding 
place. They were just about as big as the kittens 
downstairs, and looked just like them, only they 
were very wild. 

Charley ran downstairs and told his mother, and 
she and Alice came up and looked. 'When the 
boy scared the kittens out from where they were 
hiding, Mrs. Robbins could hardly believe her eyes. 

They never did find out the secret of how those 
two kittens got there. The only explanation they 
could think of was that the kittens Charley had 
tried to drown had been saved in some way, and 
that Blackie must have found them and carried 
them up to her nest again. 

When Alice took some milk up to them, Blackie 
followed her and they seemed to know the old cat. 

After that Alice fed the kittens every day. 
They grew tamer before long, and after awhile 
good homes were found for all of them, but Charley 
said he would never again try to kill any of Blackie’s 
kittens. 


183 


GRAYWINGS 

“ Quank ! Quank ! ” cried a wild goose. It 
was a cry of alarm. 

A whole flock of wild geese were feeding in 
among the marshes. Five of the flock were acting 
as sentries. It was their duty to watch for danger 
while the rest of the flock fed. It was one of these 
sentries that had given the cry of warning. 

At the sound, the flock rose from among 
the reeds with a great flapping and beating of 
wings, but the cry had come too late. As they 
rose in their flight there were loud reports from 
two guns. Bang — bang ! and bang — bang ! 

Three geese fell from the flock. They had been 
shot. 

Two were dead. They fell as heavy as stones, 
turning over and over as they came down. The 
other fell flapping and struggling. It was only 
wounded. It was still alive when the hunters 
found it, later on, among the reeds. One wing 
trailed at its side, useless and blood-stained. The 
bone had been broken. 

The hunters did not kill it. One of them said 


he would take it home alive and give it to his boy 
and girl as a pet. 

The boy and girl were very much interested in 
the wild goose, when the man took it to them, 
though the little girl almost cried to see its broken 
wing. However, her father told her that he would 

set the bone and 
bandage the 
wing and that it 
would be well 
before long. He 
told her that if 
the bones of 
wild fowls are 
broken they 
heal of them- 
selves if the 
Graywings wounded fowls are in free- 

dom, but if they are caged, the bones have to be 
set. 

The children named their goose Graywings, and 
a fine large cage was built for it. 

The goose seemed sad and lonely. It pined in 
its cage and would hardly ever eat. Perhaps it 
was pining for its mate. 



i85 


One day the father of the children came home 
very much pleased. He said he had bought a 
present for them. He had not brought it with 
him, and he would not tell them what it was. 

That afternoon the present came home in a 
wooden box with slats across the front. It was a 
wild goose which he had bought from a man who 



Graywings and the Stranger. 

had trapped it. The children s father said he had 
bought it as a mate for Graywings. 

The little boy and girl were delighted. They 
thought how happy Graywings would be to have a 
companion. They could hardly wait to take it 
out and put it in the cage with her. 

But what a disappointment ! Graywings did not 
seem to like the stranger at all. If it came near 
her, she threatened it with her open beak. She 


would not let it eat with her, and she drove it into 
a corner, where it stood terrified and unhappy, 
almost afraid to move. 

They left the new goose there for several days, 
but Graywings would not make friends with it. 
Then it seemed so very unhappy that they took it 
out and sent it back to where it had come from. 

The autumn passed and winter came. The 
flocks of wild geese had long ago flown southward 
in long Vs, quacking as they went. Everything 
was frozen as hard as stone. Even the crows 
could hardly find enough to keep themselves alive. 

It was at this time that the uncle of the children 
caught a wild goose. It was hiding in a little hol- 
low near the stretch of reeds where Graywings had 
been shot. The goose was very thin and weak, for 
it was almost starved. 

The uncle brought it to the house where the 
children lived. He and their father wondered 
very much how the goose came to be left behind 
when all its companions flew south. It was not in- 
jured in any way, and it must have been a fine, 
strong goose before it became nearly starved. 

They warmed the goose and gave it food and 
water. When the goose seemed somewhat re- 


i8; 


vived, the uncle said : “ Suppose we keep it out 

in the cage with that other wild goose you have.” 

“ Oh, no,” said the little girl, “ Graywings will 
peck it, and this poor goose is so weak and starved.” 

“Well, let’s try it, and see what she’ll do,” said 
the uncle. So the goose was taken out and put in 
the cage with Graywings. 

What was the surprise of the boy and girl to see 
Graywings come up to the poor, weak stranger, 
and greet it with the greatest joy. The new goose 
seemed glad to see Graywings, too. 

Then the children’s father guessed how it must 
be. The starving goose must have been Gray- 
wings’ mate. After she was shot her mate must 
have left the flock, letting it fly on southward 
without him, while he lingered near the place 
where she had fallen. 

If the uncle had not found the goose, it would 
soon have starved to death. 

All winter the two geese lived very happily to- 
gether in the cage. Then when spring came, and 
they grew restless and beat their wings as though 
they longed to fly, the father said it was a shame 
to keep them imprisoned there any longer. - 

So one beautiful day, when the wind blew from 


the south, and the maple trees were green with 
.winged seeds, the children rather sadly opened the 
door of the cage and set the wild geese free. 

And that was the best ending to the story, the 
father said. 


THE FLYING SQUIRREL 

One of the branches of Mr. Whiting’s great 
poplar tree had died, and Mr. Whiting told Tim, 
the hired man, to saw it off. 

Billy Whiting and his cousin Joe followed Tim 
out on the lawn and watched him climb the tree, 
settle himself among the branches, and begin to 
saw. 

Billy and Joe were about the same age, but Billy 
was the taller by almost half a head. He was 
rather a fat boy, and something of a bully. Ever 
since his cousin Joe had come to visit him, he had 
been teasing and daring him. “ Ho,” he would 
say, “ yoiu can’t do what /do”; or, “You’d be 
afraid, but Tm not” ; or, “you daren’t do it, but I 
can.” 

Now as they stood watching Tim up in the tree, 
sawing away, Billy began boasting again : “ You 


189 


ought to see me climb. You couldn’t climb up 
there and saw that limb, could you ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said Joe doubtfully. 

“’Course you couldn’t; I could though. Yes, 
sir. I’d just climb up there as easy as anything and 
saw that limb off. I wouldn’t be afraid.” 

Suddenly from the shaking branch a flying 
squirrel came sailing down directly at Billy. It 
must have been too badly frightened to know where 
it was going. 

When Billy saw the thing skimming down at him, 
he was so terrified that he spread his arms out and 
fell flat on his back on the ground, howling. 

The flying squirrel scarcely touched him and was 
gone in a moment, but the boy still lay there, cry- 
ing so loudly that his mother came out on the 
piazza. 

“What’s the matter, Billy?” she asked. 

Tim up in the tree had seen it all, and he laughed 
so hard that he had to stop sawing. 

When Joe told his aunt what had happened, she 
looked provoked, and called to her son to get up 
and be quiet. Billy stopped crying and got up, 
looking rather silly, and for the rest of the day he 
was less boastful. 


By the time Tim had sawed the branch through, 
it was beginning to rain and the boys had to go into 
the house. All that afternoon the rain fell, but when, 
toward evening the weather cleared, Billy and Joe 
took off their shoes and stockings and ran out of 
doors. How wet and cool the grass was ! 

J oe was stand- 
ing under the 
poplar tree when 
he felt something 
soft crawling over 
his bare foot. He 
looked down and 
there was a little 
baby flying squir- 
rel. There must 
have been a nest 

Joe and the Flying Squirrel ^p in the tree, and 

this little squirrel had probably fallen out of it. 

The boy stooped and picked it up. It was too 
small and chilled to try to get away. He covered 
it up in his hands with a cry of delight and ran 
toward the house. 

‘'What have you got? What have you got?” 
cried Billy running after him. 



“ It’s a flying squirrel ; a young flying squirrel,” 
Joe answered, almost crying with excitement. 

He ran to his aunt, followed by Billy. “Aunt 
Lucy, look ! look ! It’s a young squirrel ; oh, may 
I keep it ? I found it on the lawn.” 

Aunt Lucy peeped into the hollow of his hands. 
“ Why, so it is,” she said : “ a little squirrel.” 

She was almost as much interested as the boys. 
She said that of course Joe might keep it, and she 
would get a box for him to put it in. 

Billy complained, and said that he ought to have 
the squirrel — it was on his father’s lawn and came 
out of his father’s tree ; but his mother said she 
was surprised at him — that of course it belonged 
to Joe, since he had found it. 

She got a box for Joe and gave him something 
soft to put in it, so that the little .squirrel might 
have a comfortable nest. She also gave him some 
wire netting to put over the top of the box, that 
the little animal might not get away. 

Joe fed it and then put it in the box, and he and 
Billy watched it and played with it until supper time. 

While they went to supper, the box was left on 
a bench on the porch. They could see it through 
the open door as they sat at the table. 


92 


Suddenly Mrs. , Whiting said softly, “Look, 
boys, there’s the mother squirrel.” 

There she was, sure enough, on top of the 
wire netting. She had come in search of her little 
one. 

“ Let’s try to catch her,” said Billy. He stole 
very softly toward the porch. The mother squirrel 
waited until he reached the door, and then she was 
gone like a flash, and she did not come back. 

When Joe went home a few days later he took 
his squirrel with him. It had become perfectly 
tame. His mother thought it was one of the pret- 
tiest little pets she had ever seen. 

As it grew older, Joe carried it about with him 
in his pocket or in the breast of his blouse. It 
liked the blouse best. It would curl up and sleep 
there, warm and snug. Then when it awoke it 
would run up and peep out over his collar, with its 
tiny pretty head and beady eyes. How soft and 
furry it felt against Joe’s neck ! 

One time he took it to school with him and when 
it climbed down his sleeve, it tickled so that, before 
he knew, he laughed out loud. 

“ Joseph, was that you ?” asked the teacher. 

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Joe, very much fright- 


193 


ened, and, hastily slipping the squirrel into his 
pocket, he put his hand over it so that it could not 
get out. 

“ Come here, Joseph,” said the teacher. Then, 
as he mounted the platform, she asked, “What 
have you in your pocket ?” 

Joe was afraid to tell her. He only looked at 
her in silence. 

The teacher put her hand in his pocket. When 
she felt something warm and furry and alive, she 
gave a little cry. Then the squirrel peeped out. 

“Joseph, you horrid boy, what have you in your 
pocket ? ” the teacher cried, rising from her chair. 

“ It’s my flying squirrel.” 

All the scholars began to laugh, and the teacher 
could not help smiling a little herself, but Joe 
looked ready to cry. 

“You shouldn’t have brought it,” she said. 
“ School is no place for pets. You’ll have to shut 
it up in your desk now until you go home, and 
never bring it here again.” 

J oe was glad to get off so easily. He shut Dicky 
(that was the squirrel’s name) inside his desk and 
began to study, but the little animal was not con- 
tent to be left there in the hard, cold desk alone ; 

Pyle’s Humble Friends.— 13. 


194 


it rattled about among the things, and began to 
gnaw the wood. At last the teacher had to tell 
Joe to take the squirrel home and then come back 
for his lessons. 

Flying squirrels cannot really fly. Between 
their front and hind legs, on either side, there is a 
skin or membrane that spreads out in such a way 
as to make them very broad and light. When 
they spread their feet and leap, they seem to soar, 
and can go for a long distance, but it is really 
only a leap and must always be from a higher to a 
lower place. 

Dicky had a pretty little cage for a home, but 
he very seldom cared to stay in it. He liked bet- 
ter to roam about the house. He would run up 
the curtains, or get on top of the pictures and 
bookcases. From these places he would come fly- 
ing down, often startling people by lighting on their 
heads or shoulders. 

One time Joes grandfather came to pay them a 
visit. He was an old man, and his head was very 
bald. 

Once when grandfather was sitting quietly 
reading the evening paper, Dicky came soaring 
down from the top of the library door. He had 


195 



meant to light on grandfather’s head, but when he 
touched it, it was so smooth and shiny that Dicky 
found nothing to cling to. Away he slid over the 
old gentleman’s head and down his forehead, 
knocking off his eyeglasses as he went. 

“ Well, well ! ” cried grandfather. 

Joe was in the room, and he could not help 
laughing until the 
tears stood in his 
eyes. 

His grandfather 
tried to look angry, 
but he could not 
keep serious any 
better than Joe, and 
so they both laughed 
and laughed to- 
gether. 

It seemed after 
this as though 
Dicky could not keep away from grandfather’s 
head. Again and again he would come soaring 
down to it from some high place, but he always 
slipped off. 

“ Really I’ll have to keep a handkerchief over 



Grandpa and the Flying Squirrel 



196 


my head,” said the old gentleman. But Joe’s 
mother said the squirrel must be shut in its cage. 
It was getting to be too troublesome. 

So Dicky was kept a prisoner until grandfather 
went away. After that he was allowed to run 
free again. 

Joe used to bring nuts home to the squirrel and 
hide them about the room. He liked to see Dicky 
hunt them out. As soon as the squirrel found one, 
he would race away with it to some high place. 
Then he would sit up and eat it, holding it daintily 
in his fore paws as though they were little hands. 

One of Dicky’s great amusements was getting 
into the empty water pitcher in the guest chamber 
and racing round and round in it after his tail. 
Round and round and round he would go. Then 
he would stop to listen, and with a bound would 
be at the top of the pitcher, holding himself up by 
curling his little paws over the edge so that he 
could look out. If everything was quiet, he would 
drop back into the pitcher and begin chasing his 
tail again. 

This habit of playing in the pitcher was almost 
the cause of Dicky’s death. 

One day Joe’s mother had come to the guest 


197 


chamber for something, and she thought she heard 
an odd little noise from the washstand. She went 
over and looked in the pitcher. The maid had 
partly filled it with water that morning and there, 
still swimming desperately, but almost exhausted, 
was the poor little squirrel. She was just in time 
to save him. He must have come for his usual 
play, and jumped into the pitcher without looking 
to see whether it was empty or not. 

Dicky’s life, though a happy one, was not very 
long. Perhaps he had too many nuts. Perhaps it 
is not healthy for squirrels to be petted so much 
or to sleep in little boy’s pockets. 

One day Dicky seemed very subdued ; he would 
not eat, and he spent his time lying stretched out 
flat on top of the library bookcase, out of reach. 

The next morning he was still lying there. Joe 
called him, but he did not stir, and when the boy 
climbed up and touched him, he found the little 
thing quite stiff and cold. Dicky’s short life was 
ended. 



V 


' > 



0 


1 





c » 




K 


# • 


«* 


I . 


t 




» 


4 







9 


V • 

0 


I ■ 

I 


: • 


1 

A 



I 


% 




.. • 









# 


» 


-- r 



4t 


4 




v'. * •■'^ 


7» .Cl ’ ,. 


» 


< 



t 


e 


► ‘ 


. f* w 


» 


I 


V 


> '<1’ 


1 



NATURE READERS 

For Elementary Grades 


Bartlett’s Animals at Home 45 cents 

The object of these stories is to arouse the interest of children m 
certain representative individual animals, and by so doing to awaken a 
love for Natural History in general. The author has gone only to the 
most reliable sources for information. The illustrations are attractive 
and true to life. 

Bradish’s Stories of Country Life ... 40 cents 

These recollections of a childhood spent on a northwestern farm, 
aim to emphasize the attractiveness of life in the country, and to add to 
its charm by awakening an intelligent interest in its many activities. 

Holder's Stories of Animal Life .... 60 cents 

This book is intended to serve either as a first book on Zoology or 
as a supplementary reader. The author has aimed to create in young 
students an enthusiastic interest in Nature Study by presenting some of 
the most remarkable phases of animal life. 

Kelly’s Short Stories of Our Shy Neighbors . 50 cents 

This book furnishes children with entertaining and instructive 
reading in the field of Natural History. It tells about the birds, insects, 
and other living creatures that dwell near us and yet are oftentimes 
strangers, and unnoticed save by the closest observers. It does this in 
the form of stories, written in a pleasing and attractive style, and 
copiously illustrated. 

Dana’s Plants and Their Children ... 65 cents 

A series of easy lessons on the Wonders of Plant Life, as entertaining 
for children as stories. These studies in nature are not only interesting 
and instructive in themselves, but they teach the child to see, to think, 
and to observe for himself, and thus to become an intelligent student of 
nature. 

Needham’s Outdoor Studies . . . .’ .40 cents 

This book is suitable for pupils in the intermediate or grammar 
grades, who have had some years’ experience and some training in 
observation. The book may be used as a guide for field work as well as 
a reader in Nature Study, and it will pave the way for more advanced 
text-book study and for laboratory work in the higher grades. 


AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY, Publishers 

(22) 


Eclectic School Readings 


A carefully graded collection of fresh, interesting, and 
instructive books for school and home reading. They are 
admirably adapted in contents and gradation to follow 
and supplement the regular school readers. The books 
are well and copiously illustrated by the best artists and 
are handsomely bound in cloth. 


Historical Stories 

Arnold’s Stories of Ancient Peoples .... $0.50 
Baldwin’s Discovery of the Old Northwest . . .60 

Baldwin’s Conquest of the Old Northwest . . .60 

Eggleston’s Stories of Great Americans ... .40 

Eggleston’s Stories of American Life and Adventure .50 
Guerber’s Story of the Thirteen Colonies . . .65 

Guerber’s Story of the Great Republic ... .65 

Guerber’s Story of the English 65 

Guerber’s Story of the Chosen People ... .60 

Guerber’s Story of the Greeks 60 

Guerber’s Story of the Romans , , . . . .60 

Classical Stories 

Clarke’s Story of Troy 60 

Clarke’s Story of Ulysses 60 

Clarke’s Story of Aeneas 45 

Clarke’s Story of Caesar 45 

Natural History Stories 

Holder’s Stories of Animal Life 60 

Kelly’s Short Stories of Our Shy Neighbors . .50 

Dana’s Plants and Their Children 65 

Needham’s Outdoor Studies 40 

Stokes’s Ten Common Trees 40 

Bradish’s Stories of Country Life 40 

Bartlett’s Animals at Home 45 


American Book Company 

New York ♦ Cincinnati • Chicago 

(iia) 


Carpenter’s Geographical Readers 

By Frank G. Carpenter 

North America. Cloth, i2mo, 352 pages . . 60 cents 

South America. Cloth, i2mo, 352 pages . . 60 cents 

Asia. Cloth, i2mo, 304 pages . . . .60 cents 

Europe. Cloth, i2mo, 456 pages . . .70 cents 

Australia and Islands of the Sea (/// preparation). 

These new Geographical Readers are by far the most 
attractive and instructive books of their kind ever pub- 
lished. They are not mere compilations of other books 
or stories of imaginary travels, but they are the results of 
the author’s actual journeys through the different coun- 
tries, with personal observations of their native peoples, 
just as they are found to-day in their homes and at their 
work. These journeys and visits are described in such 
simple and engaging manner as to make the books as 
entertaining as stories, while conveying in this attractive 
way, useful knowledge and information. While they are 
written in easy familiar style, and in language not above 
the comprehension of children, they are strictly accurate 
in every detail and statement. 

The books are well supplied with colored maps and 
illustrations, the latter mostly reproductions from original 
photographs taken by the author on the ground. They 
combine studies in geography with stories of travel and 
observation in a manner at once attractive and instructive. 
Their use in connection with the regular text-books on 
geography and history will impart a fresh and living 
interest to their lessons. 


Copies of Carpenter's Geographical Readers will be sent, prepaid, to any 
address on receipt of the price by the Publishers : 


American Book Company 

New York • Cincinnati ♦ Chicago 

(is) 


Historical Readings for the Young 


EGGLESTON'S STORIES OF GREAT AMERICANS FOR LITTLE 
AMERICANS 

Cloth, i2mo. 159 pages. Illustrated . . . .40 cents 

This book of stories is designed for young pupils of the Second 
Reader Grade. Its primary aim is to provide reading lessons that will 
excite attention and give pleasure and thus make the difficult task of 
learning to read easier. Another purpose is to interest children at an 
early age in the history of our country by making them familiar with its 
great characters and leading events. This is most effectively done in 
this little book by entertaining and instructive stories' which every 
American child ought to know, and by vivid descriptions of scenes and 
incidents which pertain very largely to the childhood of the great actors 
represented. 

The numerous illustrations that accompany the text have all been 
planned with special reference to awakening the child’s attention, and 
they add greatly to the lessons and purpose of the book. 

EGGLESTON’S STORIES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND ADVENTURE 

Cloth, i2mo. 214 pages. Illustrated . , , .50 cents 

This book, which is intended for the Third Reader Grade, includes 
reading matter that is intensely interesting to the young — stories of 
Indian life, of frontier peril and escape, of pioneer adventure and Rev- 
olutionary daring, of dangerous voyages, explorations, etc. With these 
are interspersed sketches of the homes and firesides, the dress and 
manners, the schools and amusements of the early colonial and pioneer 
periods. The stories of this book represent in a general way every 
section of our country and every period of its history. 


Copies of the above books will be sent, prepaid, to any address on receipt 
of the price by the Publishers : 

American Book Company 

New York ♦ Cincinnati ♦ Chicago 


Readings in Classical History 

By M. CLARKE 


CLARKE’S STORY OF TROY 60 cents 

This book tells, in a most interesting way, the Story of Troy, and of 
its brave defenders and heroes, whose wonderful exploits have been 
celebrated in song and story by the greatest poets and historians of 
ancient times. The purpose of the book is to treat these classic subjects 
in such a way as to bring them within the reach and comprehension of 
young readers, at a time when their study will inspire the mind with 
lofty ideals and a taste for the best kind of reading. 

CLARKE’S STORY OF ULYSSES 60 cents 

The Story of Ulysses is taken fromi Homer’s Odyssey, which is one 
of the most celebrated pieces of literature in existence, and is especially 
entertaining for the young. The book tells how Ulysses, in returning 
from the War, is overtaken by misfortune, and reaches home at last after 
twenty years of wandering and great hardship. There are also included 
in the book a brief sketch of the siege of Troy and of the causes which 
led to it, together with a number of choice poetical extracts. 

CLARKE’S STORY OF AENEAS 45 cents 

This story describes the wanderings and adventures of Aeneas and 
his companions after the destruction of Troy, including a great variety 
of events and incidents which, as related by the famous Roman poet, 
have been read with delight for nearly 2,ooo years. The book also con- 
tains numerous poetical extracts, chiefly from Dryden’s and Conington’s 
translations of the Aeneid, and a map showing the wanderings of Aeneas. 

CLARKE’S STORY OF CAESAR 45 cents 

This book relates, in a style at once attractive and intelligible to 
young readers, the important events in the career of the famous Roman 
general, orator, statesman, and historian. It describes his early life and 
recounts those achievements in war and peace, by which this wonderful 
man built up the mightiest empire of ancient times. It also gives a 
brief sketch of Rome before Caesar’s time, its system of government, 
and some of the great personages who figured in its earlier history. 


Copies sent, prepaid, to any address on receipt of the price. 

American Book Company 


New York 

(23) 


♦ Chicago 


Cincinnati 


Burnet’s Zoology 

FOR 

HIGH SCHOOLS AND ACADEMIES 

BY 

MARGARETTA BURNET 

Teacher of ZoSlogy, Woodward High School, Cincinnati, O. 


Cloth, 12mo, 216 pages. Illustrated. Price, 75 cents 


This new text-book on Zoology is intended for classes 
in High Schools, Academies, and other Secondary Schools. 
While sufficiently elementary for beginners in the study it is 
full and comprehensive enough for students pursuing a 
regular course in the Natural Sciences. It has been prepared 
by a practical teacher, and is the direct result of school-room 
experience, field observation and laboratory practice. 

The design of the book is to give a good general knowl- 
edge of the subject of Zoology, to cultivate an interest in 
nature study, and to encourage the pupil to observe and to 
compare for himself and then to arrange and classify his 
knowledge. Only typical or principal forms are described, 
and in their description only such technical terms are used 
as are necessary, and these are carefully defined. 

Each subject is fully illustrated, the illustrations being 
selected and arranged to aid the pupil in understanding the 
structure of each form. 


Copies of Burnet's School Zoology will be sent prepaid to any address^ 
on receipt of the price^ by the Publishers: 

American Book Company 

New York ♦ Cincinnati ♦ Chicago 

(165) 


Birds of the United States 

A Manual for the Identification of Species East of the 
Rocky Mountains 

By Austin C. Apgar 
A uthor of “Trees of the Northern United States,” etc. 

Cloth, I zmo, 415 pages, with numerous illustrations. Price, $2.00 

The object of this book is to encourage the study of 
Birds by making it a pleasant and easy task. The treat- 
ment, while thoroughly scientific and accurate, is interest- 
ing and popular in form and attractive to the reader or 
student. It covers the following divisions and subjects : 

Part I. A general description of Birds and an explanation 
of the technical terms used by ornithologists. 
Part II. Classification and description of each species 
with Key. 

Part III. The study of Birds in the field, with Key for 
their identification. 

Part IV. Preparation of Bird specimens. 

The descriptions of the several species have been pre- 
pared with great care and present several advantages over 
those in other books. They are short and so expressed 
that they may be recalled readily while looking at the 
bird. They are thus especially adapted for field use. The 
illustrations were drawn especially for this work. Their 
number, scientific accuracy, and careful execution add much 
to the value and interest of the book. The general Key to 
Land and Water Birds and a very full index make the 
book convenient and serviceable both for the study and 
for field work. 


Apgar' i Birds of the United States will be sent, prepaid^ to any address 
on receipt of the price by the Publishers: 

American Book Company 

NEW YORK ♦ CINCINNATI ♦ CHICAGO 

(168) 


Barnes’s Natural Slant Penmanship 


The system of writing represented in these new copy 
books combines all the advantages of the vertical with the 
speed and beauty of regular slant writing. 

It is well known that an extreme slant tends to angu- 
larity, while vertical writing is usually slow and tends to 
an unsightly back-hand or irregular ’ slant. If left to 
themselves, without specific directions, children naturally 
fall into a certain slant in writing, — intermediate between 
vertical and slant writing. This natural slant has been 
adopted as the standard in these copy books. 

Forms of Letters. — Natural Slant copies are de- 
signed to be written^ not printed. They have the simplicity 
and the full, round, open style of the best vertical forms, 
but avoid some of the extremes and eccentricities that 
have characterized that style of writing. In every instance 
the form of capital employed has been selected, first, 
because of its legibility; second, because of its ease of 
execution; and third, because of its graceful form. Every 
copy is se7isible and significant^ and as nearly as possible the 
subject matter relates to topics which interest the pupils 
of the grades for which the respective books are intended. 
In other words, the writing exercises are made to correlate 
with the other branches of study pursued in the schools. 

The Series includes Books A, B, C, and D, small size, 
illustrated, to be written with pen or pencil, and Books i to 8, 
full size, the first two books illustrated. A set of penman- 
ship Wall Charts in four sheets is published to accom- 
pany this series of copy books. 


BOOKS A, B, C, and D, per dozen $0.60 

BOOKS 1 to 8, per dozen ,75 

CHARTS, per set of four sheets . . . . . . 1.50 


Copies sent to any address., prepaid., on receipt of price. 


American Book Company 

New York ♦ Cincinnati ♦ 

(43) 


Chicago 


RODDY’S GEOGRAPHIES 


Roddy’s Elementary Geography - - Price 50 Cents 
Roddy’s Complete Geography - - - . Price $1.00 

By H. JUSTIN RODDY, M.S. 

Department of Geography, First Pennsylvania State Normal School 


THIS SERIES has been prepared to meet a distinct demand for 
new geographies which are thoroughly up to date and adapted for 
general use in ordinary schools rather than for a particular use in a 
highly specialized and organized ideal system. 

They are distinctive in the following important particulars: 

1. An adequate amount of material is included in each book to 
meet the needs of those grades for which it is designed. 

2. The subject-matter is presented so simply that the pupil can 
readily understand it, and so logically that it can be easily taught by the 
average teacher. 

3. Just enough physiography is included to develop the funda- 
mental relations of geography and to animate and freshen the study 
without overloading it in this direction. 

4. The simplicity of the older methods of teaching this subject is 
combined with just so much of the modern scientific methods of pres- 
entation as is thoroughly adapted to elementary grades. 

5. The physical maps of the grand divisions are drawn to the same 
scale, thus enabling the pupils to form correct concepts of the relative 
size of countries. 

6. The political and more detailed maps are not mere skeletons, 
giving only the names which are required by the text, but are full 
enough to serve all ordinary purposes for reference. In addition, they 
show the principal railroads and canals, the head of navigation on all 
important rivers, and the standard divisions of time. 

7. The illustrations are new and fresh, reproduced mostly from 
photographs collected from all parts of the world with a view to helping 
out and explaining the text and not for mere embellishment. 

8. To secure proper practice in map reading, formal map studies 
or questions have been inserted with each map, directing attention to 
the most important and essential features. 


Correspondence regarding the examination and introduction of 
Roddy's Geographies is cordially invited and zvill receive prompt attention. 

American Book Company 


New York 

(no) 


Cincinnati 


Chicago 


Spelling and Word Study 


RICE’S RATIONAL SPELLING BOOK. By Dr. J. M. Rice. 

Part I. For use in the first three grades. Boards . .15 cents 

The Same. Cloth 17 cents 

Part II. For use in all grades above the third. Boards. 20 cents 

The Same. Cloth . . • 22 cents 

This is a spelling book pure and simple, designed for use in all the 
grades or years of school work. It has been arranged on a definite 
psychological plan, based upon an examination of the schools of nearly 
all the large cities of the country and upon a careful study of the actual 
spelling of many thousand pupils. 

PATTERSON’S AMERICAN WORD BOOK 

Graded Lessons in Spelling, Defining, Punctuation, and Dictation. 

By Calvin Patterson, M.A 25 cents 

This new spelling book embodies a carefully developed and pro- 
gressive plan for teaching the forms and values of English words in 
common use. It begins with words illustrating the primary sounds, the 
words being printed both in Roman letters and in vertical script. Then 
follow graded lessons on different classes and uses of words. 

HARRINGTON’S SPELLING BOOK. Complete. . . 20 cents 

Part I. — separate. For Primary Grades . . • . . 15 cents 

Part II. — separate. For Higher Grades . . . . 15 cents 

A complete course in spelling for graded and common schools. 

McGUFFEY’S REVISED ECLECTIC SPELLING BOOK . 17 cents 

Conforming in orthography, pronunciation, syllabication, and 
diacritical marks to the Websterian standard. 

NATURAL SPELLER AND WORD BOOK . . . . 20 cents 

SWINTON’S WORD BOOK OF ENGLISH SPELLING . 18 cents 


Copies of any of the above books will be sent, prepaid, to any address on 
receipt of the price by the Publishers : 

American Book Company 

New York ♦ Cincinnati ♦ Chicago 

(32) 























i 


j 

'J 



r. 


♦ ■ ; 

' I 

I /' 






« . < 




DEC S4 ia02 


t 

: - 

f 


> 


I 








I 


t 



i 

% 




t 


••* 




I 


I 


I 


# 


< 


I 


1 < 


# 






*. rr‘‘ 




W,i 


, ^ i-.f ' J.^^fr-^- .. , ,1 

' ...' '■•■'■' ■■’*. -1^' 


-V» * 


'^■'2 


Y 




I .. * 


1 1 


I >. 




■:m'- 

?‘V ~ ^ I 


' ^'V ',. 




>;w 


< < 


, iV.-\ '' ';,<• Vy,' /•, 

^'a.« ^ *> ■ 




(A 






i1 


y/ 


.ir/. 






» 




< > 


.i' *.* • • • 

. /I ♦ 




tj <*. 






' f 









' •• i 






\y K'* • ’ ■ 

Mi 




a ■ ■ » 


A »• 



*\ s* 


. s 




y t 


.•Hi 


• ;/ «, «f 

■h'.'yy 

“4m 


K»h 


.. t 


Kief 


i t 


’> y, 

’ ’ r. » 



t t 


V. 


'> • 


' , ■ 

♦ :• 

1 


i' s 

.' *•: ' 


' • 

' "» . . 

!.'• • . 


■s» V 


./i 


nV'- ' 


-i ■,.»■ 


w 


^,:K^ '.VnV. 

kVffiH *%ri, 




■p. 


V . 





m: 




' ■ I 




■ . I < 


* f 


\ ‘ 


.* . /- J_.. . . .- % • I . 


V. 








f r 


kt‘i- 






»■» 


k K)Mi 


w 


f* 




s! 


I ♦ f 


/lr»‘ 




I • • 



V * * 


>’ r- 


i 

'K 


-V 

' • ' iA •* 

kJ '■ vA-}f' .. i: 


I (( 




i 4 ’! 




ii 


'Vn 


¥! 


• i^ji k I 


■! '.' 




' (' 


: t 


^ ■/ 




t; 


,'i’ 








r ' ' 4 

V'^v ) ' 






y', 


^ y* 


^ I 


. 'VV. 


- < 


•i .■ 




f O’VI] 




"IV' t 








I < 




v.V‘. 




, * r* 




fr: 


\m 


%*/. 


Uj: 


'm 


, r^' • 

• * . •' v.>/: 

■/ 


kt II 


I**; 








‘in* 



i%s 




y.)| 


I Vi 'l '.V VV'ji 

? ; 


W^, 

*.m;' 

' .' I ■ 




V 


. t 








^Tl JJ: 







